


In These Broken Ruins

by Enk



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Drugs, Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, Forced Orgasm, Frottage, M/M, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-09
Updated: 2011-11-09
Packaged: 2017-10-25 21:07:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enk/pseuds/Enk





	In These Broken Ruins

**Prologue**

 _“Good night, Uncle Hikaru.” Joanna smiled from under the blanket and Hikaru leaned close to place a gentle kiss on her forehead._

 _“Night, Jojo.”  He smiled and closed the door before he returned down the stairs into the living room of Mama McCoy’s house. He nodded when Leonard gave him a questioning look and placed his finger in front of his lips. They turned off the lights and slowly made their way outside where Jim was sitting on the porch with a beer in his hand._

 _“Put the monkey pilot to bed?” He smiled and took a sip of his beer.  Hikaru nodded and pulled at Jim’s hand. “Adult bed time?”_

 _Leonard rolled his eyes and took Jim’s arm, pulled him close, and kissed him slow and thorough. These moments had been rare, and it had taken almost three days to settle down from the initial excitement of shore leave, of seeing Joanna after months of deep space, of Mama McCoy feeding them everything under the sun, of calling relatives and friends.  Now, they finally were on their own time. Hikaru leaned against them, kissed Jim first, and then turned to kiss Leonard just as slow and tender with a smile playing around his lips._

 _“Adult bed time.” He pulled them gently toward the McCoy guest house. It was little more than a renovated shed, but there was a bed in a loft, a bathroom and a tiny kitchen. They stayed in the main house, but all three had come to the consensus that it would be rude and disrespectful to exchange more than a few G-rated kisses in Mama McCoy’s house. When the door to the guest house closed, Hikaru pushed Leonard into the wall and kissed him hard and deep and thorough until Jim took over and Hikaru slid down in front of Leonard._

 _They hadn’t touched in three days, well, four, the first day back on Earth had been dedicated to debriefings and formal ceremonies. The second day had been dedicated to food and Joanna and now, at the end of the third day they had finally recovered enough to indulge in each other. Jim was quick to get Leonard out of his shirt, kissing whatever skin he exposed.  
Leonard had been half hard since he’d waited for Hikaru to put Joanna to bed and by the time Hikaru pressed his lips against the fabric of his jeans, his hard-on was raging.  He had last come their first morning here, a quick wank during an early-as-fuck morning shower so as not to wake anyone, and he’d felt strangely guilty after, like he did as a teenager when he snuck quick, desperate jerks in the shower, under his covers, and when his mother was gone, in front of the giant vid screen in the basement where he used to play dubiously found porno vids pretending he was the one getting pegged by those ladies in their high heels and brightly coloured strap-ons._

 _“Fuck!” Hikaru smiled when Leonard’s thoughts were interrupted by the feel of his lips wrapping around the head of his dick.  He loved driving him insane, with a flick of his tongue, the barest suck and his fingers wrapped around the base.  He loved even more when Jim joined him, kissed Leonard’s flavor off his lips and nodded at him, cueing them to look up at Leonard from under half-lidded eyes. “God damn it, you’re too fucking hot, both of you.” Leonard smiled and had a hard time to keep standing upright.  It was almost instinct from there, pulling Leonard to the ground. It didn’t matter that there were three; they still were a perfect fit._

 _It took a few moments of heavy breathing before they can move again. Jim was the first one to shift and roll onto his side, a finger playing in the puddle of semen pooling on Leonard’s belly. He smiled and licked his finger before grabbing the sheet and wiping up the mess they left.  Leonard turned his head and reached for Jim’s hand to kiss it. Hikaru laid draped half over him with a smile on his face._

 _“Adult bed time successful.”  He grinned._

 _“I’ve been thinking,” Leonard held both their hands in his._

 _“Did it hurt?”_

 _“You’re an asshole, Jim.” But Leonard smiled. He took a deep breath. It was harder than he thought it would be. He felt so comfortable around Jim and Hikaru and yet, he couldn’t bring himself to say outright what he wanted.  “And you totally killed the moment.” He didn’t expect Jim’s reaction._

 _“Hey,” Jim looked concerned, propping himself up on his elbows. “What’s going on? What’s on your mind?” The tone in Jim’s voice must have concerned Hikaru because a few seconds later; he felt him pressed against his back._

 _“Everything okay?” Hikaru kissed Jim’s back and looked at Leonard who was now fidgeting._

 _“I just thought, maybe we should-“ he didn’t know whether to say ‘ceremony’ or ‘wedding’ but he never got that far.  
   
***  
   
It was nearly one o'clock in the morning when the call came: all Starfleet personnel on Earth shore leave report to their respective ships immediately. For a few good minutes, Jim thought about pretending he didn't receive the message. They were supposed to have three more weeks of this, three more weeks of blissed-out normality. A court martial would be worth the price of that, but when Jim got the mission brief, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore it: three civilian medical supply freighters missing, one of them sending out a distress call, and the only ships close enough were those in Earth orbit._

 _With a frustrated sigh, Jim woke them up. There was no time for breakfast, only to pack and for sake of ease they just shove most things into Leonard's large duffel bag. They ate on the way to the shuttle hangar that would take them back to the Enterprise. Joanna sat quietly on Leonard's lap. Jim understood the clenched jaw, the blank stare into space. He'd been through it enough times with his own mother. The sudden calls in the middle of the night, the leaving without notice, it always seemed like they're running away from you. He felt for her and if he could he'd just bring her up to the ship with them, but rescue missions often turned dangerous at the blink of an eye and Jim wouldn't be able to forgive himself if anything happened to her._

 _Arriving at the hangar bay, they were met by Starfleet officers in charge of coordinating the shuttles that would take them back to the Enterprise. Admiral Archer greeted them and Jim recognized Adele Geoffrey from the briefing on the way here. Adele and two Ensigns picked up their bags and Archer handed Jim a PADD with new orders._

 _When they walked away, Leonard picked Joanna up and talked quietly to her. She nodded and put on her bravest face, but Jim could tell how close to tears she was. She hugged Hikaru tightly and he promised to come back and give her flying lessons and when it was Jim's turn to say goodbye, he crouched down in front of her._

 _"Feels like we're running away from you, doesn't it?" She didn’t have to nod for him to know the truth. "It's not fair but you understand why we're leaving, right?"_

 _"Yeah," her voice was a little shaky and less brave than her face, "because there are families who need your help."_

 _"That's right and we'll do our best to save them as fast as possible and come back here before you realize we've been gone for long."_

 _"I know." She hugged him and he squeezed her tight before letting go._

 _"That's my girl, brave and wise beyond her years." Leonard looked after Joanna and his mother as they left the boarding area. Jim nodded quietly; an odd feeling about this mission crept up in his mind, something he couldn’t quite shake. If three years as Captain had taught him anything, it was that nothing ever comes easy and every moment of happiness comes at a price. And they'd been really fucking happy for this past week._

 

 **Chapter 1**

Jim looks at the chrono, nervous, then at Nyota who shakes her head, hand on her ear piece. Six hours, Hikaru Sulu has been missing from the Enterprise without a trace for six hours. Jim sits in his chair, gets back up, paces behind the helm and then looks at Nyota again.

“Anything?”

“Nothing, Captain, I’m sorry.” She feels for him, but he has been asking her every five minutes and it’s not helping her. She knows he’s worried, that he cares, but so does she. Her best friend vanished from his quarters just after his duty shift.

What they know is after his duty shift, Hikaru went to the mess hall for about forty-five minutes; he then went to the gym for sixty-seven minutes and returned to his quarters where he showered for fifteen minutes and ordered black oolong tea from the replicator inside his quarters.  All traces of Hikaru vanished after using the replicator. Scans revealed no further activity, no life signs, no distress call, nothing. It was as though Hikaru Sulu had vanished into thin air. Searching his records, there was no indication of a planned absence, defecting, joining the enemy, or classified missions. Many, many calls to Starfleet later, Jim was repeatedly assured that Hikaru was not involved in any top secret assignments.

"Captain," Spock stood beside Jim's chair, "perhaps it would be a good idea to rest while we continue to scan the area. You have been awake for eighteen hours and the Human body requires more rest than a Vulcan one."

"You're kicking me off my own bridge, Spock?" Jim looks at his friend, equal parts annoyed, amused, and grateful. Starfleet had called them to this sector on a rescue mission, though there had been no trace of any ship activity. Just before they were to rejoin the fleet and Hikaru had disappeared and while the rest of the crew had already cycled a sleep period, Jim had not.

"I would never suggest such a thing." Spock's face is calm and Jim knows he would in fact not kick him off the bridge unless he thought it absolutely necessary. And Jim is tired, physically and mentally, but he is also certain that he won't be able to sleep until Hikaru is found.

"Maybe I should stop by sickbay, Bones could give me something to help me sleep." He isn't sure it is a good idea to see Leonard right now, but he has been avoiding him since Hikaru went missing.

"A wise decision, Captain." Spock doesn't exactly usher him off the bridge, but he accompanies him to the turbo lift, insistently.

"Thank you," Jim whispers when he knows the rest of the crew can't hear and Spock merely nods and places his hand on Jim's shoulder.

"We will find him." He glances over at Nyota and Jim realizes that Spock is thinking about what he would do if she went missing. "We will find him."

Jim swallows the knot in his throat, nods, and heads to sickbay where Leonard is sitting in his office, his door wide open, with a scowl on his face. Jim flops onto the chair in front of Leonard's desk and closes his eyes.

"I need to sleep."

"Damn straight you do." Leonard often has a tendency to hide worry underneath a gruffer than normal exterior.

"Please, Bones, no lectures." Jim isn't in the mood for banter, or really any human interaction until Hikaru has been found, but as a starship Captain, that isn't a luxury he can afford.

"I was going to suggest dinner and a drink in my quarters before I give you something that will knock you out for at least three hours." Leonard picks up a PADD. "I'm almost done here. I'll meet you there in half an hour."

Leonard gives him a 'those are Doctor's orders' look and Jim gives in, because he's not the only one who lost someone they love today. What had been casual, fun threesome sex in the Academy had somehow ended up as a committed relationship of the parent-meeting caliber. Jim knows Leonard is feeling everything he is –- the confusion, the worry, the panicked fear that lies way too close to the surface whispering of dreadful things.

The walk to Leonard's quarters and the shower that follows don't quite settle those feelings, but Jim feels a little more human. Alone, though, the worry and fear like to multiply in the silence of the walls, and before Jim is able to force it back down he's interrupted by the chime of the door. A young Vulcan Ensign is outside the door carrying Leonard's duffel bag as if it is no heavier than a satchel.

"Captain," he nods, "we have finally located Doctor McCoy's missing luggage. It was mislabeled and placed in Cargo Bay four with spare parts. Lieutenant Vittori sends his apologies."

"Thank you Ensign Lovik. I am sure he appreciates that it wasn't lost."

The bag is heavy, heavier than Jim remembers. Vulcans and their making everything look light and easy. Jim drags the bag to the coffee table, but it's heavy and he's tired and the bag straps slip from his fingers and the bag falls onto the edge of the table with a whimper and then to floor.

A whimper. Bags don't _whimper._

Something cold settles in Jim's spine and gut, cold enough to momentarily displace his worry for Hikaru, and within seconds he's kneeling beside the bag, tearing at the fastening straps. 

"Fuck, tell me you didn't," he rips the bag open and beneath a layer of clothes, he catches sight of a light brown head of hair and lethargic green eyes, "god damnit you did. Joanna! What are you-" Jim can't decide whether to applaud her for her bravery, yell at her for doing such a stupid thing, or a combination of the two. He opts for a quick scan from Leonard's emergency kit to determine she has no serious injuries.  
Joanna looks at him as if she can't quite focus, but the scanner tells him she's safe to move. He carefully picks her up and it isn't until her head is against his shoulder that she starts to cry quietly. Jim holds her closer, rocking her slowly, and she doesn't reprimand him for treating her like a baby; she just cries, clinging to his shirt, tears of fear she'd been holding back, tears of relief, tears of exhaustion. Jim just holds her.

"You're safe now, Jojo. You're safe now." It takes a while for her to fall silent, and when her breath comes evenly, Jim carries her back to sickbay.

"Captain, Doctor McCoy just left. You really should be-" Christine's face morphs from disapproving to worry when she realizes Jim is not simply wandering in. "Tell me that's not..." She whisks a med kit off the closest bio-bed and turns on the scanners.

"Yeah," Jim carefully places Joanna on the bed, "we had a stowaway."

"We left Earth orbit 18 hours ago! How did she survive?!" The temperature in the short-term storage cargo bays were just above freezing to conserve energy.

"She was in Bones' bag. Vittori found it in the non-essential spare parts storage." He looks at her. "Someone strapped the bag in, there was no way she could have gotten out on her own." And that makes Jim feel ill. What if they had not found the bag for days? What if Lovik had delivered the bag tomorrow or the day after? How long could an eight year old child survive without water? What if- Christine's hand on his shoulder is gentle.

"I can tell what you're thinking and my advice to you is: don't. She's dehydrated but I have her on fluids and she is otherwise fine. Leonard is on his way here."

When Leonard arrives, it's a blur of worry, anger, a lot of anger, questions, a brief accusation which Christine squashes in an instant. The conversation distorts in Jim's ear and he hears Christine ask when he last ate before her voice melts into the floor. Leonard gives him a worried look and moves his mouth, but no words seem to be coming out. Jim tilts his head to point this out but when he does, the lights go out.

The lights come back on slowly, like someone is opening his eyes. Apparently, he is opening his eyes and he is laying down.

"Tell me I didn't faint." Jim finds his speech a little slurred but otherwise he isn't feeling too terrible, tired mostly.

"Oh no, Captain," Nurse Katie smiles at him. He really likes Nurse Katie. She's so nice and cute. "You experienced a loss of consciousness due to a syncope induced by low glucose and adrenaline levels."

"Pretty sure syncope means fainting," Jim tries to sit up slowly, but firm hands push him back down, and Katie pulls out a hypo. "Hey wait a minute-"

"Not a chance, Jim," Leonard's voice is floating somewhere above him, "You're at twenty hours without sleep and haven't eaten in sixteen of those hours. You're sleeping for a full eight hours while I pump you full of liquids and nutrients."

"But Hikaru," there's a soft hiss by his neck and he knew those things weren't supposed to hurt, "and Jojo... I have to-"

"You have to sleep, Jim. That's all you have to do right now. Sleep."

"Maybe for a little whi-" He doesn't finish, before he's fast asleep.

Leonard sighs and looks at Christine, she notes he looks exhausted too but doesn't say anything. Instead, she squeezes his arm and smiles.

"Come on, Katie has this under control," Christine says as Katie nods at the words, "let's get some food in our bellies and we can talk if you like."

"Sure, yeah, fine."  Leonard looks at Katie who has pulled up a chair beside Jim's bed, hypo ready should he try to wake up and sneak out of sickbay as he has a long history of doing. Joanna is in the bio-bed beside Jim's, sleeping peacefully, recovering from her incredibly stupid adventure, but somewhere deep down inside, Leonard is glad she is here. Now he'll just have to tell her mother.

Christine ushers Leonard to the mess hall. While the ship has been outfitted with state of the art replicators, in an effort to create a communal morale, most of them offered only a limited selection and each crew member had a certain weekly amount of rations. Most of the crew never used them all because it was nice to hang out with friends especially during shift breaks. She sits him down in a quiet corner, leaving him with a firm look, and returns a few minutes later with a tray full of food -- good comfort food. They eat mostly in silence, which Leonard enjoys  because Christine has a way to make silences comfortable. That is, until she puts her fork down and looks at him with interest.

"How are you, Leonard?" Well, there goes that comfort. What is he supposed to tell her? That he's just fine and dandy, that the three people he loves the most have all been subjected to some form of danger in the past day?

"Clinging to whatever thread I have left." He has to be honest, she would call him on it otherwise, and it is a bad idea to get on Christine's bad side. She nods and just looks at him for a long time. "I'm fucking miserable, okay? One of my partners disappears, the other is running himself into the ground, and then he finds Joanna half-dead because she decided to sneak onto the ship. How am I supposed to feel? Tell me, because I don't have a goddamn clue."

"Like this I would think," Christine puts her hand on his, "you're not alone. Every single person on this ship has orders to do whatever they can to help find Hikaru. Orders, Leonard. And they didn't come from Jim, they came from Admiral Pike. We won't leave him behind and we will take care of both Jim and Joanna. We're one ship, one crew, family, Leonard, family." She smiles at him.

"I know," Leonard feels incredibly tired, "I just- why would she sneak onto the ship? What on earth would possess her to do that? She's always been such a good, smart kid, no trouble in school, lots of friends."

"Children sometimes do things because they feel they have to. You can ask her all you want, and she wouldn't tell you because she can't, because it was probably something beyond conscious thinking. Talk to Jim about that when he wakes up, I believe he has a lot to say on the subject." She spears a few beans with her fork.

"I need to contact her mother, and my mother. They're probably worried sick." He is actively ignoring Christine's suggestion. Jim never talks about Tarsus and Leonard has a feeling that some things need to be left unsaid, some horrors are best forgotten rather than relived.  
"We should have a good connection right now, the station in your office; I'll make sure no one disturbs you."

Sitting down in front of the console is hard. Leonard still has a hard time facing Jocelyn, even if his relationship with Hikaru and Jim has mellowed him out and actually helped better his relationship with Jocelyn. Still, he now has to calm her down, calm his mother down, and calm himself down; and- he sighs and runs his hand over his face when the vid call cues to connect.

“Leonard!” Jocelyn looks tired, drained.

“She’s fine. Joanna is fine.” Leonard closes his eyes when Jocelyn bursts into tears. He’s never been good with this. “Jim has his best team investigating how she possibly could have snuck on board. She’s in sickbay right now.” When Jocelyn’s face distorts in quiet panic, he quickly adds “just for tests, she really is okay.”

“How, Leonard? She’s seven!”

“I don’t know Jocelyn!” He feels the silent accusations, the guilt, the insinuation that he is not cut out to be a father.  It hurts, like it hurt before the divorce, like it hurt right after. He’s not even sure that she means to make him feel like this or if it’s his own self-doubt nagging at him. But then she calms down, takes a deep breath, wipes her tears, and looks at him again.

“Tell me everything. I just need to know.”

So, Leonard does. Everything. How Jim found her, how she was when he brought her to Leonard, what Joanna had told them, about the investigation and how soon she’ll be able to leave sickbay.

“Are you on your way home?”

“No.” They can’t. They’re the only ones close enough to get there in under twenty-four hours. The Enterprise is the only one of the ships that has enough fire power to engage an enemy. “She’s safe here. We’ll take her back as soon as we’ve investigated this call. Jim thinks we shouldn’t be longer than two, three days max.”

“Well, there isn’t anything I can do, is there?”

“I’m sorry.”  Leonard is, and if he could he’d turn the ship around.  With a shuttle, they’re over a week away from Earth, and it’s still space out there, and a shuttle alone is just too risky.

“Yeah, so am I.” Jocelyn disconnects, and Leonard rests his head in his hands and tries to compose himself.

 

 **Chapter 2**

  
Leonard has been pushing paperwork for a couple of hours when his communications console makes an odd hissing noise, like static in the background. He sighs, but the noise stops before he gets up, and he's not in the mood to deal with technical malfunctions.  
He is back in the world of reports when suddenly arms wrap around him. Shit, he didn't even hear the door, but his alarm settles the moment he smells Jim's scent.

"Are you allowed out of bed?" Leonard leans back into the embrace.

"Whatever you gave me wore off." Jim's cheek is against his, and it is very comforting.

"It was supposed to last another two hours." Leonard turns his head to look at Jim, but he receives a kiss instead, gentle, almost chaste. "How are you feeling?"

"Always the doctor," but Jim is smiling, "I feel better. Nurse Katie made me drink some awful nutritional supplement before letting me out of bed. She drives a hard bargain."

"Keeping you in bed? I think I need to give her a promotion." It's a nice, tender moment, to have Jim's arms wrapped around him like nothing has happened, like Hikaru is just an hour away from being off his duty shift, like Joanna isn't recovering on a bio-bed just outside the door.

"I assume Jocelyn was furious." Jim doesn't move away.

"She wasn't happy, that's for damned sure, but she didn't ask that we turn around this instant to bring Joanna back."

The console makes that awful noise again and Jim releases his hold on Leonard to investigate. "It was making that noise earlier," he informs Jim, "who knows what the hell is wrong now."

Jim looks at the console, pushes a few buttons, his brows furrowed in concentration. He doesn't say anything, just caresses the console gently like he's trying to seduce it into telling him what's wrong. It beeps after a few minutes, this time a clear, familiar noise.

"It's an incoming message." Jim looks at Leonard. "Encoded and routed through the scanning array rather than communications." There's a faint look of hope on his face when he uses Leonard's communicator. "Uhura, I've got something incoming on the console in Leonard's office. Can we clear it up?"

"There are no communications incoming through the a-" she breaks off for a moment. "How the hell is that even possible? I'm working on it, Captain. Can't guarantee clarity, there's something really odd going on here."

"Odd is the right word, Lieutenant," Jim stares at the screen which slowly clears up, "is this live?" There's a pause, no doubt Nyota is tracing the signal.

"No, but the message can't be more than a few minutes old, it is destabilizing fast. I don't know how much of this I'll be able to salvage, but the first couple of minutes should be up in seconds."

"Thank you, Uhu-" Jim stops mid-word as the static clears. There's a console in a corridor somewhere, not much to make out but the immediate area in front of it. Someone's shoulder is there, the screen flickers, there's a noise of someone hitting something.

"Come on, baby, just work for me this once," a voice sounds and Jim tenses. Leonard is up on his feet behind him.

"Hikaru?" Leonard grips Jim's arm.

Hikaru's face appears in front of the camera, he looks disheveled, one eye swollen almost shut, his lips is split, and there are too many cuts and scrapes to count.

"Oh fuck, baby, you're the best!" Hikaru seems to have realized a successful transmission signal. "This is a Starfleet distress call." He continues on a standard distress call, looking over his shoulder every so often. After he's finished, Hikaru looks around again. "Enterprise, if you intercept this, you won't be able to trace their location. Their ship is out of temporal alignment. You have to- fuck!"

Suddenly there is a struggle and an odd laugh. It is mostly off-screen, but they are able to see two people forcing Hikaru to his knees. Someone is talking to him, but the voice is too quiet to make out. The third person places a device on Hikaru's shoulder and suddenly the air is filled with his screams for what seems an eternity.

Jim feels Leonard's fingers dig into his arm. It's hard to watch Hikaru suddenly slump forward, motionless. A gloved hand pulls up his head by the chin, but instead of appearing unconscious or worse, Hikaru is smiling. 

"That tickled," he coughs, "may I have ano-" the transmission breaks off.

"Sorry Captain, that's all we got." Jim can tell by Nyota's voice that she's seen the whole thing as well. "I don't know if there was more or if it just deteriorated to the point that we can no longer salvage it."

"Thank you Lieutenant," Jim's voice is hoarse, "please forward the transmission to engineering- wait, belay that. Call for Ensign Chekov and Lieutenant-Commander Scott to report to the bridge immediately. I will be joining shortly."

Before Jim leaves, he pulls Leonard close, he wants to be able to do more but there's a piece of them missing. Hikaru is missing and Jim can't emotionally let his guard down until he finds him. He's just a Captain with a missing crew member until then. Just a Captain, not a lover, not a quasi-stepfather.  Jim has to compartmentalize to get through this, has to set boundaries. He takes a deep breath.

"We'll get him back, I promise." And that's all he can say. He can feel Leonard tense when he moves away, knows Leonard needs more, needs something more tangible, but Jim just can't give him that right now, and he really hopes he'll be forgiven for that.

When Jim arrives on the bridge, Pavel and Montgomery are already there, scanning the area. The two are speaking rapidly to each other. Jim had noticed that after the first few months aboard the Enterprise, the two men had almost instantly connected on a level of science that was sometimes even beyond Spock's comprehension. It made for excellent work, so he encouraged it. Watching them talk, in short hand, like their own language, was fascinating.

“Lieutenant Uhura briefed us, Sir!” Pavel looks too excited. "We have found the origin of the message! Briefly." He furrows his brows. "We've lost the signal but we have a baseline, we just need to calibrate according to the previous parameters and scan the area again until we find it." Pavel continues for a while. "But we will find it." 

The briefing goes well, and for the first time in 14 hours does Jim feel less lost, does he feel like he is not swimming against the rapids. There is a tangible plan, a timeline, something more than stabbing randomly in the dark.  
Montgomery backs up everything Pavel says, occasionally translating into regular people language when Pavel goes a little too deep into the genius pool. Jim is smart, placing at genius-level in all of his test results, but sometimes, he thinks Pavel is from another planet and speaking a language even the translators can't quite grasp. They spend a long time talking, Spock eventually joining them with reports from parts of the science team, and suddenly the whole thing has become a mission.

They break for lunch, or rather, Jim goes to the mess hall for a bite to eat upon orders from Leonard. When he returns, the light of the bridge is down to perhaps ten percent and Pavel is lying on his back staring at the ceiling. Before he can say anything, Nyota places a finger on her lips.

Instead of the view screen, a projection is displayed on the ceiling. At Pavel's station, Montgomery is sitting, slowly changing the display, made up of grids and stars and Jim isn't sure how Pavel gets his bearings. To him it looks like a crazy mess.  Spock silently moves across the bridge and stands beside Jim. He leans close and whispers, barely audible.

"A new perspective. Ensign Chekov is attempting to gain greater insight from a different vantage point. He asked me to assist him with Vulcan meditation techniques to help him understand the problem he is facing." Spock sounds proud and it makes Jim smile.

"Would it be all right if I sit in my chair?" Jim wonders, looking at the Ensign who is lying right across the space between the helm and the Captain's chair.

"It would be advisable to disturb him as little as possible." That would be a 'No' then.

"Is he trying to find where the transmission came from?"

"We have established that the transmission's only origin could have been a space bearing vessel. Mr. Chekov is trying to find the ship." Jim looks up at the overlays and isn't quite certain how anyone could make heads or tails from what is projected onto the ceiling, and Spock continues quietly. "If the ship is in temporal flux, it will be seen by these scans, but it is a vast area."

Nyota glares at them and Spock moves away from Jim. "Perhaps we should discuss these details at a later date."

"Agreed," Jim nods, as being the subject of Nyota's wrath was his least favorite activity, "I'll be in my ready room."

Before Jim can move, Pavel's finger shoots up, arm rigidly stretched toward the ceiling. "Stop! Scotty, what is that?! Grid 13,7.4?! Magnify, ten times!"

"Shit, lad," Scotty zooms in, "how did you even see that?" He repeats the scans. "The position is a stable orbit around the third moon." Pavel nods and his fingers fly over the PADD as he stares at the ceiling.

"Captain, if we adjust our sensors to scan for chroniton output and-" he pauses, working the PADD some more before looking at Jim. "I figured out a way to beam onto the ship."

"What?" Jim isn't sure if this is shock.

"We can beam over. I don't see a way to safely beam Hikaru out, but if I can go there and find him, I can use the ship's transporters to get us back."

"What if they don't have transporters?" Jim knows the question is stupid but instead of correcting him, Pavel hands him his PADD.

"So, this field is not an anomaly, you believe the ship is using its deflectors to output a temporal instability bubble? A ship with those specs..."

"Definitely has transporters." Pavel smiles broadly.

"You have 60 minutes to run whatever tests you need to, then report to transporter room C, you, too Uhura. Spock, you have the bridge."

The surge in Jim's gut is almost overwhelming. They have a plan. All they would have to do is beam onto a clearly hostile ship of unknown size, find Hikaru, and finally, engineer themselves a way back to the Enterprise.  
Jim doesn't stop at sickbay, nor does he seek out Leonard in his quarters before he leaves. The man is safest here with his daughter. Jim couldn't risk losing them as well.

 

 **Chapter 3**

  
Nyota is already in the transporter room when Jim arrives.  She looks determined, fierce, ready to kick a lot of ass to get her best friend back. She traded her dress for regulation trousers and uniform shirt, and upon a second look, she’s packing some serious heat. On top of the regular phaser holster on her thigh, she has a mean looking knife on the other and is shouldering a phaser rifle; Jim is certain there are many more concealed by layers of clothing. She means business and that's part of the reason Jim asked her to come on this mission.  
He needs people with their wits about them. He'd rather have Montgomery than Pavel, kid's still green with away missions, but they need Pavel's brain and ability to get them out. He's sure it will work out somehow. Cupcake, well, he'd promised to call him by his name more often, so Jason, not Jaxx. Jim tried that and got cleaned right out playing darts. He tolerates jay but that's as far as he let's Jim deviate into nicknames. He shows up with two others, Jim recognizes Lieutenants Jack Aubrey and the other is a new transfer he's told, Lieutenant T'Pari. The six of them are ready to take their positions when the doors to the transporter room open.

"God damn it, man, you are not going in there without a doctor. That ship is out of temporal alignment and before you ask, that’s a bad thing. Not that you actually considered that," Leonard is dressed in uniform, medkit satchel hanging from his shoulder wielding a hypo.  

Jim has plans to open his mouth and tell Leonard that everyone is trained in basic first aid and that Aubrey has a pre-med certificate and that they do in fact have radiation meds with them. However, the glare in Leonard's eyes, the sheer determination on his face, Jim can't deny him to come along. "God knows what the hell they've been doing to him or worse, what you're going to do. We're not losing anyone because you're patching each other up."

Jim doesn’t argue. Instead, Jason, Jack, Nyota and T’Pari, he decides will be the first to be beamed onto the other ship. Then, he, Leonard, and Pavel will follow. Leonard injects them with what he tells them are calibrated chronitons to ease the passage between time fields. When Pavel pipes up that technically it is a time bubble, Leonard stabs him with the hypo.

“You may experience nausea or headaches but they will subside as your body acclimatizes to the new environment.”  He stabs Jim and then finally himself. As Nyota and the others take positions on the transporter pad, he leans in close. “Where the hell are we even sending them?”

“Oh rest assured we have no idea,” Montgomery smiles at Leonard before Jim can reply, “but we’re sending them- and you by the way- to the same corridor we picked up the transmission from.  If all goes well, none of you should find your cells fused with the nearest bulkhead.”

“This is a god damned blind mission, Jim!” Leonard has the sense to whisper, albeit angrily. “And you weren’t going to tell me about it!”  
He’s mad, Jim can tell not just by the hot breath on his ear. Jim knows why, but this is a mission and he can’t, can’t let go right now.

“Not now, Doctor.” He hates when he has to draw that line, that line that divides him from the rest of his crew. He doesn’t like it and he knows he’s operating a horrible double-standard, but emotionally he just can’t take it right now. Leonard doesn’t say another word, just looks at him, disappointed, hurt, but determined.  When Montgomery calls them up the transporter pad, Pavel looks vaguely uncomfortable but he’s able to hide it behind his game face. He’s ready, Jim knows it. The kid’s been tested in the field enough times that he shouldn’t be calling him a kid anymore.

“Okay, lads,” Montgomery looks up from his console, “brace yourself.”

The do, but they aren’t prepared for the jolt.  Jim holds his breath as the world dissolves and then punches him in the gut as it rearranges itself. He gasps but his lungs briefly burn like they’re on fire; and it takes Jim a few stumbled steps before he can find his bearings.  The world is still swaying slightly.

“Lieutenant, you’ll be more miserable holding it in,” Leonard looks unaffected and pats Jack’s back as he throws up.

“Every- everyone all right?”  Jim takes a deep breath, the nausea slowly subsiding and the world settling into place.

“Fine, Captain,” Nyota is helping up a slightly disoriented Pavel while T’Pari and Jason quietly discuss tactics. The lights in these corridors are dimmed, but even in the dim light, Jim can’t shake a feeling of familiarity. Nyota places her communications piece into her ear and turns it on.  “While we don’t have a link with the ship, your communicators are on a direct line to me.  Chekov and I will try to crack this work station to see if we can get a layout of the ship and find Lieutenant Sulu faster.”

“Then we will find the transporter room and I’ll work on getting us all back in one piece.” Pavel smiles like this is going to be a piece of cake. It won’t be. They all know it. They can all feel it in their bones.

“Good work. Lieutenant Aubrey, I know you have some experience with transporter engineering. Stay with them.  T’Pari, you’re with Bones, Cupcake,” he grins at Jason, “you’re with me.”

They leave quietly, phasers drawn.  The corridors are dimmed, like the ship is diverting all available power. Jim still can’t shake that feeling when they turn the corridors.  That familiarity.  He looks around as Jason scouts ahead, looks for something, anything that would give away Hikaru’s position. The corridor forks and Jim meets Jason who is standing by the fork.

“I think I’ve been here before,” Jason whispers and when Jim stands beside him, the feeling of familiarity engulfs him, races up his spine until he sees the very same junction brightly illuminated inside his head. Left it toward the turbo lift, right leads to cargo bay 4 and the brig and it’s the only forked corridor on the whole ship.

“This is the Enterprise.” He is startled by his own words.  A glance over to Jason tells him that he’s right. Jason is pale, fingers tightly wrapped around his phaser.

“What the hell?” He turns to Jim. “What the fuck is this place?”

“Captain,” he hears Nyota’s voice, “the computer, it just let me in. And this is going to sound crazy but we’re on the-“

“Enterprise,” he interrupts her, “I know. “

“The layouts are identical. My security clearance allowed me to access all kinds of files. Hikaru is being held in the brig. I’ve given T’Pari your location. Her and Doctor McCoy should rendezvous with you shortly. But Captain,” she sounds worried, “be careful. This reeks of a setup.”

“I will. Thank you, Uhura. You and Chekov head to the transporter room. At least we all know where to find it. Good luck.”

“Aye Captain,” her voice is tense, and she is right. Jim can smell the set up, but what can he do. He can’t let Hikaru rot in the brig of another Enterprise. His brain refuses to contemplate what that might mean. Focus on the mission, the target, the objective, nothing else can matter right now.

“Permission to scout ahead,” Jason looks anxious to move. Jim knows he too can sense the set up.

“Don’t get yourself shot,” Jim nods. T’Pari and Leonard are only five minutes away.  If anything happens, he’ll have backup.

“Can’t let that happen,” Jason grins at him, “who else is going to clean you out on Poker Thursdays?”

T’Pari and Leonard appear not long after Jason has disappeared behind the slight, sleek curve of the corridor Jim would recognize anywhere.

“Lieutenant Uhura has briefed us,” T’Pari is moving quickly, phaser drawn, she covers the rear as they fall into a trot toward the brig. They come to a halt a few steps from the doors that lead to the security area before the actual brig. Sudden screams cut through the air, desperation and pain, but the voice is not Hikaru’s.  Jason is on the other side of the doors and Jim motions him and T’Pari to flank them while he and Leonard enter. There is a frown on Jason’s face, clearly, he disagrees with Jim’s plan but as he opens his mouth, Nyota’s voice interrupts him.

“Captain, get out of there! Hide!” She sounds rushed, breathing heavy like she’s running.

“You heard the lady,” Jim gestures them to move. T’Pari is the first to move toward the direction they had come from.  Jim turns, Leonard standing behind him.

“Come on, Bones,” Jim touches his arm, “we have to go. We’ll come back for him.”

“Run.” Leonard looks at him but doesn’t move a muscle.

“Yeah but not without you, come on.”

“No, run,” Leonard moves his hand to the back of his neck and pulls out a small dart, “please.” He collapses to the floor, unconscious. Cold fear clutches Jim’s gut as he drops beside Leonard, desperately searching for a pulse and when he does Jim can’t help but let out a choked noise of relief.

“Come on,” he tries to pull the man up, “let’s go, I’m not losing you, too!”

There are footsteps coming closer. Three, four men, Jim isn’t sure, but Jason grabs him, pulls him away from Leonard. He tries to fight at first but Jason’s grip is strong and he pushes him against the wall.

“We’re no help if we’re captured!” He flinches and Jim can see a dart sticking out of his shoulder. “I’ll distract them. Run.”

This time, Jim doesn’t hesitate, gets his emotions back under control and runs. He ducks behind a corner, catching his breath and pulling his phaser from the holster.

“Uhura, we’re under attack!”

“I noticed that!” She sounds as out of breath as he does. “They’ve got Chekov and Aubrey.”

Jim curses and darts out, shoots two men with his phaser before running down an opposite corridor.

“Uhura?”  There is a long silence. Jim feels his heart pounding, his gut constrict.

“Where are you?” Her acoustics changed, she’s whispering. He doesn’t need to read the signs to know what junction he is in. This is definitely his ship. Only she is not and that makes him nervous if he thinks about it too long. “Okay, Captain, you remember where you and Hikaru ducked out for a quickie in the Jeffries tubes right before shore-leave started?”

“How do you even know about that?”

“Can you find that place in the dark?”

“Yes…”

“Of course you can,” the lights flicker, “same ship, same technology.” The lights go out and it’s pitch black. “And my access codes get me into power relays. We should have an hour before they come back on. Turn off your communicator. I’ll meet you there.”

“You know I thought I was the Captain.”

“I’ll be glad to discuss rank with you when you meet me there.”

Jim smiles but doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to. She knows he will be there. It really is pitch black and despite knowing his ship inside out, Jim does bump his head and knees a few times as he crawls through the bowels of the ship.  When he arrives at the small domed maintenance node, he can feel someone else’s presence.

“Uhura?”

“Captain.” She touches his arm, a reassurance but also sympathy and right now, Jim just takes it, sits down and puts his hand over hers. Here in the darkness, rank becomes superfluous. What counts is friendship and loyalty, so in the silent darkness, they share a moment and let go of their fears.

“What happened?” He finally breaks the silence.

“They got Aubrey right away. Poor guy could barely walk, he kept throwing up.” Her voice is steady but there is something there that Jim can’t quite put his finger on. “Chekov and I almost made it, but then…” she trails off and it takes her a moment to continue. “I was running. Chekov was maybe ten meters behind me. McCoy appeared out of nowhere, grabbed him and yelled at him like he did something wrong and just dragged him off.”

“What? Bones went down with some kind of tranquilizer dart in his neck. I saw him.”

“We’re already the crew. Well, not us, but we are already here. I was able to check the crew manifests before I killed the power.  Almost everyone is accounted for.”

“What the hell kind of ship is this?” Jim whispers through his teeth.  He closes his eyes and leans against a bulkhead trying to keep from being overwhelmed. Categorize, he thinks to himself, figure out the mission, focus on the target, lives depend on you. “We need a plan.”

 

 **Chapter 4**

  
When Leonard wakes up, he is feeling disoriented and dizzy despite his eyes still being firmly closed. Something is digging into the small of his back and the rest of his body is really, really uncomfortable. He tries to force his eyes open, but they aren’t quite cooperating yet.

“Hey Doc,” a familiar, calm voice, Leonard really doesn’t want to get his hopes up. “Come on, fight through it.” It’s all the encouragement he needs and when he finally opens his eyes, squints until he is used to the light, he sees Hikaru, sideways.  He is laying on his side it seems and digging into the small of his back is the corner of a cot.

“Hey,” is all Leonard can manage, but there is a weight suddenly lifted from his chest.

“There are force fields between the pillars, don’t touch them. It hurts.”

“You okay?” Leonard slowly sits up and when he is able to properly focus on Hikaru, the man looks like he’s been dragged through hell and back, torn clothes, scratches and bruises covering all exposed skin.

“Just surface wounds,” Hikaru sits on the cot in his cell. “They’ve been trying to get me to cooperate but they aren’t leaving any lasting damage it seems.”

They talk, quietly, the less attention, the better. There aren’t any guards visible, but Hikaru assures him that there are people watching and that the only way out used to be a weakness in the force field, which since Hikaru’s little excursion had been fixed. Leonard slumps at the realization that there is little hope for them to escape their prison.  The conversation shifts to the obvious, the Enterprise, and what the fuck is going on?

“I don’t know. I just-“ Hikaru shakes his head. “All I remember is trying to get a cup of oolong  and I… I don’t know. I felt ill and then I was here in this room.” He stops there, but Leonard can tell that there is much more that Hikaru isn’t telling him.  Instead of asking questions, Leonard nods, then smiles.  No matter how trapped, how banged up they are, they are alive; and he has no doubt they will escape.

“This has been the longest damned day of my life.” He looks at Hikaru, wishes he could touch him. “Sure you feel the same. When we get back to the Enterprise, I’ll make sure we-“

“Day? Did you say ‘longest day’?” Hikaru slumps back on his cot and laughs, but there isn’t any mirth, any joy to it. It’s a desperate, hollow noise that strikes Leonard to the bone. Before he can ask, Hikaru composes himself and looks at Leonard. “I have been here for eleven days.”

“How- Hikaru, I-“ Leonard has no words. What is he to say? He doesn’t understand how that is possible. Sure, he knows about time vortexes, alternate universes, bent space and time, but he is a doctor, damn it, not a quantum physicist. But Hikaru waves him off, shakes his head.

“Doesn’t matter now,” he looks at the ceiling, “doesn’t matter, you’re here now. Never doubted you’d come back for me. Kept track though.”

He nods at the wall where he has carved nicks for days into the bulkhead.

“We came as soon as we traced the origin of your message.”

“Repercussions hurt like a bitch.” Hikaru smiles. “I’d do it all again.”

“Probably wouldn’t have found you otherwise.”

“Mhm.”

“I want to check you for injuries.” Leonard stands close to the force field.

“Split lip; multiple contusions on face, torso, back, and thighs; no internal injuries save from a cracked rib that’s been healed. Alter-doc got a half hour in the Agony Booth for that one. I think the fucker did it on purpose and got off on it.”

“A-agony booth?”  Leonard is horrified at the implications.

“It hurts. A lot.”

“It’s not called the goddamn tickle booth, is it?” Leonard rolls his eyes. “You better catch me up here. “

Suddenly, there is too much information for Leonard to process right away, so he asks questions, a lot of them. And Hikaru, Hikaru gives him answers. So many, so fast Leonard’s head spins a bit. Hikaru tells him about the ship, the other crew. He talks quietly about devices called Agonizers and what had happened to him.

“So the crew,” Leonard feels cold creeping up his spine, “they look like us?”

“No,” Hikaru shakes his head, “they are us. “

“I’d never do this to any-“

“This is not our time. I can’t imagine the things that happened here. No one talks about them, but you can see them in their faces. They’re desperate, cornered, like a wounded animal.”

“Are we now?” A drawl comes from the door and the form of Leonard McCoy walks onto the room. “My, my,” he moves immediately to Leonard’s cell, “what they’re sayin’ is true. You do look like me.” Leonard stiffens and takes a step back, knows immediately he’s in the presence of a predator. McCoy smiles, no leers, at him.  He does look like Leonard, if Leonard grew out his hair, lost 25 pounds, and stopped sleeping for a month.  “You didn’t tell me he was this handsome, Hi-chan. I must say, I do love what you did with your hair, Lenny.”

Leonard turns his head, looks at Hikaru who cringes at the use of nicknames. McCoy drapes himself against the bulkhead beside the force field and continues to watch Leonard like a cat watches potential prey. He tilts his head and smiles; and Leonard notices the lab coat he’s wearing has fallen open. McCoy is wearing black pants, some ridiculous gold sash and nothing else underneath the coat revealing an expanse of scars in many varying shapes, sizes and colourations.  Leonard can’t help but stare, wondering how one could procure such scars.

“Didn’t your Mama teach you not to stare?” But McCoy’s face speaks volumes on how much he loves it though and that makes Leonard flinch.  He looks at Leonard and slowly raises a hand and places it against the force field. There is a sudden crackling, humming noise and the air fills with a smell like ozone. McCoy leaves his hand for a while before calmly removing it. “Your turn, Lenny.”  
Leonard isn’t sure why he does it, what possessed him to copy an obvious mad man with a penchant for pain, but still he does.  He slowly places his hand against the field and as soon as his finger tips touch he feels like his body is being burnt and electrocuted beginning with his hand and traveling along his nerves. He manages barely a few seconds before stumbling  backwards, breathing heavily as the pain lingers.  McCoy looks at him, smiles, an oddly soft, gentle smile.

“I’ll be back for you.” And with that, he leaves.

“What the fucking hell?!” Leonard tries to shake the feeling of having been soiled somehow, cradling his hand which still stings.  
“It’s like you were turned inside out and then stewed in self-hatred and psychosis for a few years.” Hikaru shoots a spiteful glance at the door and Leonard wonders just how much time he had to spend with McCoy.  “You know, they asked me to join them.”

“Join them?” Leonard looks confused. “You don’t mean…”

“Like a job offer, yeah.”

“But why would they-“Leonard doesn’t get any further when the door opens again, and Jim Kirk walks through the door. For a moment, Leonard is relieved, but then he sees his uniform, sleeveless, golden sash around his waist and his heart drops into his gut.  Unlike McCoy, Kirk is not alone, an ensemble of three brawny security officers with batons, phasers, and knives. Leonard eyes him, moving toward the back of his cell. What’s worse is the lack of difference in their demeanor: this Kirk not only looks like Jim, he holds himself like Jim, walks like Jim, moves like him. Kirk pushes a few buttons releasing the force field to Leonard’s cell and sits down on the cot.

“Hey.” And fuck, he sounds exactly like Jim, too.

“Captain.” Leonard looks at him, tries to read him, but it’s hard to focus.

“How are you feeling?” Kirk looks him over. “They darted you after I specifically asked them not to. I am very sorry about that.” He even sounds sincere but Leonard isn’t just going to trust him, not after all he’s just heard from Hikaru. “You want something for the pain?”

“I think I’m fine.” His head is pounding but he doesn’t trust anything Kirk is offering him. He’s a little taken aback by the way Kirk looks at him. There’s something in his eyes, and if Leonard didn’t know better he would think it to be affection, perhaps even love. It’s not something he expected and he thinks of Jim and Hikaru who is just over there and the promises they were about to make before the call had come in.

“Captain, I ask that you release myself and my crewmates and let us return to our ship with Lieutenant Sulu.”

“Ah yes,” Kirk shifts on the cot, “I figured you would ask, but,” he gets up, “unfortunately I cannot do that.”

“Why the hell not?”

“We need the best pilot in the fleet.”

  
“He’s not yours.”

“I’m well aware of that, Leonard.”

“Don’t you have your own fucking pilot?” Leonard is getting angry, or really, he has been angry since he’s been told that Hikaru had gone missing.

“He’s dead.” Hikaru’s voice is quiet, tired. “He killed him.”

“He betrayed our trust.” Kirk gets up and leaves the cell. “But our affairs don’t concern you. Your arrival was unplanned, but seeing as you are here.” He smiles and now, Leonard can see the difference between the two.  Kirk’s smile looks genuine, but his eyes are cold and empty and together his face looks more like a snarling grimace than a person. Leonard tries in vain to suppress a shudder. “And, Leonard, you have to realize I will do anything to have him fly my ship.”

“He won’t.”

“Until you arrived, I agree.” Kirk circles Leonard.

“You’re not going to use me as leverage!” Though, he realizes that he’s on Kirk’s turf and he might not have a chance. He’s not going to give up without a fight, damn it.

“Of course not.” Kirk puts his arm on Leonard’s shoulder.  “However, you will go to Sickbay and I will turn a blind eye.”

“Don’t!” Hikaru nearly jumps into the force field. He’s more panicked than Leonard has ever seen him, that doesn’t just worry him; it makes him feel sick to his stomach. “Don’t send him there.”

“I won’t send him, Hikaru.” Kirk smiles again and Leonard concludes that Kirk’s smile is a hell of a lot creepier than all of McCoy. “He will volunteer to go.”

“I’m not going to fucking volun-“ before Leonard can finish the sentence, Kirk nods and one of the guards presses a button on his belt and Hikaru collapses in a screaming heap. From this angle, Leonard can see a small device attached to the back of Hikaru’s neck.  

“I understand.” Kirk nods again and Hikaru goes down screaming.  “His record by the way is seven minutes before he passes out, but not to worry. We have something to wake him right up again.”

“Stop it!” Leonard punches the force field which jolts him back a good metre. It’s like a punch taking his breath. In the cell beside him, Hikaru continues to scream, eyes rolling in the back of his head, fingers like claws. “Stop! Please! I’ll go, just stop!”

“That was faster than I thought it would be.” Kirk waves a hand and Hikaru collapses and curls into a ball. “We’ll be back for you shortly.” He leaves with his entourage and Leonard kneels as close to Hikaru as he can get.

“Are you all right?”

“Why did you do that?” Hikaru looks at him and Leonard is surprised to see tears. “Why did you do that?” He rolls to his side and for the first time in his life, Leonard watches Hikaru cry.

 

 **Chapter 5**

  
The walk to sickbay is long, much longer than usual from the brig.  Leonard thinks it's in part because Kirk insists on making small talk as if it’s perfectly fine that he is sending someone to be tortured by his Chief Medical Officer, as if it’s okay that Leonard is probably going to be dissected alive.  He notes that the entire ship is still dimly lit and briefly wonders if it is a power saving measure or if Jim got away and was messing with the ship’s internal systems. Kirk hadn’t mentioned him or any of the other crew, so Leonard holds out hope that they were evading capture.

When they get close to sickbay, the lights grow dimmer as they walk along the corridor. Leonard half expects to start passing heads on spikes, or blood covered walls, but other than the dim lights, the two ships look identical here.  
It’s the door that worries him. While the corridors are dim but clean and this door stands in stark contrast as if it’s been hauled from another place, crudely painted and carved, dented oddly, it doesn’t quite fit. Leonard doesn’t want to imagine whether the dents were caused by desperate fists or someone’s head bashed into the door. With a door like this, who needs heads on spikes? It opens slowly, groans and creaks as the metal moves, and what lies behind…

Leonard closes his eyes, trying to see Joanna in his mind. She’s safe and sound on the other ship; Gaila and Christine and the rest of the crew are looking after her; she’ll be brought home safe even if he won’t be.

And then, Leonard McCoy makes peace with death.

They are silent when they enter, Kirk looks hesitant and maybe he doesn’t want to be there either. Not that Leonard blames him. Sickbay, a clean, sterile place of healing, cool, soothing calm on his ship, here it is a twisted, perverted shadow, a wound that has been left to infect and fester.  The lights here are dim, with most of the illumination coming from odd power nodes embedded in the walls, flooding the area with an eerie glow. The open areas are crammed full of shelves and tables with bottles, old-fashioned Bunsen burners, beakers, flasks, Petri dishes -- stuff and things and clutter everywhere.  But Leonard can discern patterns in the madness. Biohazards are accordingly labeled; the area, despite its apparent disarray is clean; charts and notes are neat and precise; the lab rats are looking well cared for; and the cadaver on the bio-bed does not smell despite the first signs of decomposition. Leonard closes his eyes when he realizes the cadaver is still wearing parts of his or her uniform, a regular Starfleet uniform.

“Who is it?” The rate of decomposition isn’t right for the amount of time they have been on the ship but who knows what sort of experimentation they’d put any of them through.

“No one from your team if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Why are they wearing one of our uniforms, then?”

“Target practice,” Kirk motions for him to stop, “wait here.” He disappears around a corner where, on Leonard's ship, there is a supply cabinet, quarantine rooms, and his own office.  Waiting with the dead body is fine; he’d rather not see what they did to his office here. However, when he hears soft voices talking, he decides to move closer to the bio-bed, taking the chance to look at the file displayed there: Lieutenant-Commander Adele Geoffrey. The name rings familiar, but Leonard doesn’t have a chance to consider why as the voices around the corners rise above a mere whisper.

 “-don’t care. You gave your word.”  McCoy sounds agitated, possibly distressed and Leonard isn’t sure he wants to deal with an agitated McCoy. Sounds too much like it’ll end with him being disemboweled and forced to clean up his own mess.

“In due time, my friend, in due time, trust me.” If Leonard’s ever heard a placating voice, it’s Kirk’s voice right now. Fuck, he hates that man. “In the meantime, I have an assignment for you.”

“I’m busy.”  Works for me, Leonard thinks.

“Is that the thanks I get for giving you another pet?”

“No, just-” McCoy is quiet again and Leonard can’t quite hear what else he is saying.  Leonard moves a little closer to the corner, trying to listen in.

“I need you to do this for me.”

“What if I don’t?” McCoy’s voice has an edge to it. “What if I don’t want to do your dirty work?”

“I don’t have time for your games, Bones.” Kirk's voice is cold, dismissive, and dangerous. “He needs to be convinced to tell Hikaru to fly the ship again. Then, and only then, can we continue and I can keep my promise. If you refuse, I’ll cancel the whole thing, throw you in the dark and leave you there. And you know what waits for you in the dark.” The last words are spoken with such vicious intensity that Leonard can’t quite suppress a shudder as bile rises in his throat. He shakes himself off, what the hell is he doing feeling anything even close to sympathy for a butcher?  He doesn’t wait for McCoy’s answer, trying instead to take another look at the body.

“Did I not tell you to wait? There.” Kirk gives him an angry look, grabbing him by the arm like a misbehaving child, and drags him around the corner.  Leonard could have done without that. There are cages, many, many stacked cages filled with all kinds of small animals attached to various apparatuses. 

The first thing he notes is the smell; it smells clean, too clean for the amount of animals present. Next, he notices the bottom cages are in fact just one large cage. Unlike the other cages, dark grey cloth hides their inhabitants from view, like curtains… fastened on the inside of the cage? What was in there? A sudden shiver creeps up Leonard’s spine.  
Not what but whom.

“You’re in great hands.” Kirk slaps his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I have no doubt you’ll come to see our side. Doctor McCoy, I expect a progress report in eight hours.” McCoy doesn’t reply and busies himself with something on a shelf instead. From the corner of his vision, Leonard can see the cloth curtain rustle. He extends his hand, if he can just pull them back a bit, see what’s behind, maybe he could-

“You can help me feed the cats before I cut you open.” The way McCoy speaks, the nonchalance with which he seems to exist right now; it seemed to negate the man Leonard met in the brig, the man that was salivating at the thought of getting his hands on Leonard.

“The cats?” Leonard’s brain doesn’t compute. “What?” He isn’t really sure what else to say, because cats are not something he expected. They don’t make good test subjects due to their ability to hide medical conditions.  
“It’s time to feed the cats.” He says, as if Leonard was supposed to know this. “They don’t like to be kept waiting.” He hands Leonard a bowl. “The food is on the second shelf to the right, the blue dispenser.”

“You’re serious.”  Leonard has no idea how to take the situation and almost automatically fills the bowl with the dispenser. “What are you feeding them?” The kibble isn’t kibble at all, but rather small nutrition cubes. Leonard recognizes them, they’re the same kind they feed patients after surgery, easily to digest but all the nutrients necessary for a person to- “Who is in that fucking cage?!”

Instead of giving an answer, McCoy kneels beside the cage. The lock is an old fashioned number pad, but when Leonard leans to get a closer look, McCoy obscures it with his body. The door slides open,  and McCoy moves to take the bowl from Leonard.

“They’ve been cramped in there; they might be a bit cranky. He’s not used to company.”

There’s a rustling and Leonard holds his breath when he sees Pavel, dressed in a black suit that clings to him like a second skin, crawl like a cat out of the cage. No, not Pavel, he looks like Pavel but there are more lines on his face, there’s more wear in his eyes and when he stretches like a cat and gives McCoy a put off look, he realizes that this is their Chekov. Which means that- Leonard falls to his knees and pulls the curtains back.

“Pavel?! It’s me, Leonard.” Pavel is huddled in a corner; he’s lost his uniform tunic and a sleeve on his shirt. His pants are bunched up in a corner and Leonard isn’t sure he wants to know why.  Hearing his name, Pavel’s eyes dart around the cage, spooked, wild and he pulls further into his corner. “Chekov!” Leonard uses his best command voice hoping to snap him out of it, but Pavel whimpers and tries to hide.

“What the hell did you do to him?!”

“I gave him a home.” McCoy looks like he doesn’t understand the question. “He needs to be taken care of.”

“He needs to-“ Leonard runs his hand through his hair and turns around before snapping back. “He’s a fucking nineteen year old kid! He’s not a god damned pet!”  Beside them, Chekov makes an indignant sound and sits down on a pillow beside the bowl, turning his back to them.  Leonard glances at him and shakes his head. “You can do what you want with your Chekov, but _he_ does not belong to you!”

“This is why I said ‘no’,” McCoy is talking to Chekov who is still sitting with his back to them, “I knew he was going to be loud and rude and just barge in here. I don’t have time for this, I really don’t.” For a moment, he looks like he is going to cry but then something changes in his demeanor. He pauses and slowly turns his head to look at Leonard, and Leonard remembers the sneering smile that peers at him. McCoy inhales and before Leonard can move, he is pinned against the cages. He feels various joints crack before there is a hiss and then-

 

 **Chapter 6**

  
Leonard wakes up with a groan for the second time he's been beamed to this god damned ship. He is not impressed, and considering the throbbing behind his eyes and his lower back, he is in the mood to kill someone, potentially his counterpart, maybe Chekov, possibly Jim for not stopping him from coming along. He's not sure. Even the dim light is painful when he opens his eyes. He is definitely not impressed. Then, he realizes he can't move his arms or legs. He is bound to a table, arms and legs strapped down. He isn't naked, which is a relief but only for the moments it takes for him to notice that he is being watched.

"Good morning, sleepy head." McCoy smiles at him. Great, he just went from bad to worse.

"God damnit, you have to stop drugging me!"

"I would but then you would have to cooperate and for some reason, I think you won't." He smils and caresses Leonard's cheek. "You were so beautiful, so very beautiful when you came around and let go."

"What the hell are you even talking about?" But McCoy wanders off, whistling cheerfully.

Behind McCoy, the Chekovs sit on an oversized pillow on the floor. Chekov is still wearing the black suit and beside him, Pavel sits, looking miserable in a matching suit of a soft cream colour. From what Leonard can tell, he hasn't been hurt. He figures they threatened the kid into putting it on. It's not right, definitely not right. On top of it all, they put a big, sparkly collar on the kid.

"If you let him go," Leonard looks at Pavel, "then I'll cooperate." He knows the moment the words come from his lips, that McCoy doesn't believe him and certainly isn't going to let Pavel go.

"I think not, but I do have a job for you." McCoy smiles and caresses Leonard's cheek. "Your Pavel here and I, we're going to go into my office to get better... acquainted. You stay here, get comfortable, and think of the access codes you use on your ship. Whenever you feel ready, you can tell my Pavel here to let me know. Meanwhile, the more time you take, the more time we have together in my office. I am sure he will enjoy himself."

"You're not going to touch him!"

"Well, I am not one to kiss and touch right away." McCoy leers at Pavel. "But the longer you take, the longer we have together." He walks over to Pavel and pulls him up to his feet. "And the longer we have together, the better we will get to know each other." Pavel whimpers when McCoy inhales the scent of his hair, when McCoy brushes his lips against his ear. "It will all be quite exciting." He doesn't wait for Leonard to answer and drags Pavel into his office, the door closing with a hiss behind them.

"And you're not going to be any help, are you?!" Leonard shouts at Chekov. "He's got you brainwashed to be his fucking pet. How is that even right?! Don't you realize the way he treats you? You're a god damned person, not a fucking feline pet!" Leonard feels helpless and shouting at Chekov seems to help. Maybe, just maybe he'll be able to make him see, to make him understand that what this McCoy is doing is wrong, that what is happening here is wrong. And maybe, maybe he'll be able to convince him to help.

Chekov looks at him, curious, maybe even puzzled. Leonard wonders if he's been exposed to enough terrible things that his brain was actually fried. Then, he slowly gets up, stretches like a cat and pushes himself on his feet. He walks slow, but with determination and an odd elegance that Leonard can't quite place. When he stands in front of Leonard, he pulls the hood from his head and then backhands him. Leonard bites his lips at the sudden impact.

"You are small-minded, judgmental, petty." There is not a trace of an accent in his voice. "You intrude into my home, and you come in here with your accusations, your assumptions. It is disgusting." He grips Leonard's hair tightly and pulls his head back. "Believe me, I would much rather you gone than have to deal with you here."

"What?" Leonard is confused by the sudden onslaught of words from a man he'd watched eat kibble from a bowl. "You want this?"  
"Is that so hard to believe?"

"Damned right it is! He treats you like an animal!"

Chekov hits him again. This time his face is less calm. "This is my choice. You have no idea, none." His fist balls and he walks away, probably to prevent himself from hitting Leonard again. He is shaking with anger and for a while, he says nothing at all. He just paces across Sickbay, every so often glancing at the office door.

"You have feelings for him?" Leonard didn't think that was possible. How could anyone have feelings for a monster like that? But it is written in Chekov's face like Leonard knows it is on his when he looks at Hikaru or Jim or when they look at him.

"Fuck you." It's not convincing, though Leonard feels the anger directed toward him is. "Again with your judgments. Who the fuck are you to come here? Who do you think you are? You have no idea what the hell we have had to endure!" When Chekov picks up a scalpel, Leonard actually starts to worry for his safety. "If you tell me what we need to know, he'll let you go."

"Bullshit, I wouldn't let me go either and I'm not batshit crazy."

"He's not crazy." Chekov is really too close for comfort with a blade and Leonard begins to wonder if he worried about the wrong guy.

"Really?" He keeps his voice calm and quiet. "He is threatening to rape my friend; he threatened to dis- not even threatened, he suggested to disembowel me for entertainment."

"He doesn't mean that."

"He doesn't- good god man, how fucking blind are you?!"

"I'm not." Chekov is still holding on to the scalpel. "He needs this. He's not always a violent person."

"Not always? Kid, you gotta be kidding!"

"You would be the same."

"No," and Leonard believes that in his core, "I could never be like that."

"Not even if you lost your child?"

That stops Leonard in his tracks, makes him rewrite everything he's been thinking in his head, underlines every bit of doubt he could have had and makes him question his answer. Joanna, he'd so anything for her, anything. He'd kill for her, he doesn't hesitate on that thought. But could he end up like that? Like McCoy? What would he be without her?

"What," he licks his lips, his mouth is suddenly dry, "what happened?"

"She died by his hand to save her from a fate much worse." Chekov's voice is a little raw. "I wasn't there, but I learned of the aftermath when I- he wasn't the same after." Leonard doesn't really want to know more, doesn't really want to know what details would have led to a father murdering his child in order to end her suffering. The idea baffles him, breaks his brain in ways he didn't think possible.  
"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you need don't see what's right in front of you. There's so much you don't understand. And that's the key to getting off this ship." Chekov holds the scalpel up and cuts at Leonard's bonds.

"Why?" He really can't think of what else to say. A few minutes ago, he was afraid that scalpel would carve profanities into his skin, and now Chekov was using it to loosen his bonds. He doesn't carve through them completely, but Leonard knows if he tests his bonds they would give way.

"There is much more going on than you can imagine. Find a way to get off this ship and leave us alone."

"You know we're not here because we want to be."

"I know," he moves to the leg restraints, "you are here to rescue your Lieutenant Sulu." When he is finished, he puts the scalpel back onto the tray. Leonard would have preferred if it had been put away, out of reach, in case that McCoy returned with a thirst for blood.  
"What else do you know?" But Chekov shakes his head and there is a sob that comes from the office.

Before either of them can react, Pavel stumbles out of the office, half undressed. McCoy exits shortly after him, fully clothed, a bloody gash across his cheek. There is blood on the sleeves of Pavel's suit and he scrambles for the nearest blunt object, the nearest weapon. It is in face a weapon, McCoy's Agonizer and Pavel holds it with determination.

"Pavel please," McCoy walks after him, but he no longer moves like a predator, and if Leonard could have placed it then and there, he'd think he was moving like a lost child or a senile old man who forgot where he is. "I'm sorry, Pavel." Chekov is between them in seconds.

"He's not me, Len! Remember?" Chekov puts his hand on McCoy's chest. "I'm here, right here." Behind them, Pavel moves closer to Leonard, pulls at his restraints.

"Let's get out of here!" He pulls off the cuffs, and grabs his arm. "While they're distracted, quick!" And Leonard should leave. They should get the fuck out of here, try to find Jim and Nyota and the others, but something keeps Leonard from moving, keeps him from leaving.

"Doctor McCoy!" Pavel looks distraught. "Please!"

"Go!" Leonard pushes him toward the door. "I'll be okay here. Find Jim and the others! You can come back for me."

"Doctor, please, it's not safe!"

"Go, damn it!" He pushes Pavel hard enough to make him stumble. Pavel looks at him, and through his fear, something else settles in his eyes and he nods.

"I will come back for you, Sir!" McCoy turns to look at him and Pavel runs to the door, runs fast and doesn't slow down. When he disappears through the door, Leonard sighs with relief. He’s not sure why he suddenly needed to stay, why he needed to know more of what happened to McCoy, but he’s here and he hopes he’s made the right choice.

When he turns his attention back to McCoy and Chekov, McCoy has sunk to his knees, Chekov beside him, talking quietly into his ear. There is something happening between them, an intimacy that Leonard didn’t expect to happen despite having guessed at some form of relationship between the two. This ship was truly fucked up.

“Is he all right?” He doesn’t move closer but he still can’t bring himself to walk away.

“He’ll be fine.” Chekov turns his back to Leonard, like he’s protecting McCoy from him which is an odd turn of events considering the potential disembowelment.

“But Leonard here won’t be.” Kirk’s voice makes Chekov flinch and McCoy look hopeful. “Yes, Len, it is time.” Kirk strolls into sickbay, Chekov hisses and scurries to the far depths of his cage. “Come sit here.” He pats one of the biobeds and pulls a pair of scissors and a shaver from his satchel. Gently, he pulls the band from McCoy’s hair and begins to cut slowly, with care. Leonard’s eyes widen when he finishes and there McCoy is, hair a spitting image of Leonard’s.

“No.” He whispers. “Please, no.” He suddenly begins to realize the things about to happen. And his thoughts are confirmed when Kirk hands McCoy a standard issue uniform and tells him to change.

“It’s time.” He pulls off his shirt and changes into a gold uniform and suddenly Kirk looks exactly like Jim. “You knew what this was about. Deep down inside, you knew the moment you came here.”

“Joanna.” Leonard feels frozen.

“Yeah.” Kirk pats his cheek. “And now that you know, we can’t have you try and escape, can we now.” There’s a hiss and Kirk puts away a hypo. “Neurotoxin, shuts down your nervous system. Don’t worry, it’s mostly pain free.” Kirk smiles and ushers McCoy to the door. “Come on, your daughter is waiting for you.”

It does have an effect almost immediately. It feels like fire, then like ice, traveling along Bones’ nerves. The feeling in his legs goes first and creeps up his spine. He’s going to die here in this forsaken ship while they take his Joanna. Joanna. Leonard can feel tears run down his cheeks and suddenly, he hits the floor hard. The last thing he sees is Chekov crouching over him.

 **  
**

**Chapter 7**

  
“Where-“ McCoy is trembling. “Where is she?”

"Calm down, I'll find out." Kirk runs quick fingers over the console and it doesn't take him very long before he finds the entry added to denote Joanna's arrival on the ship. It lists her assigned comm code, residence, and a whole slew of emergency procedures to do with her. Finding her whereabouts on the ship is easy from there. "She's in this Leonard McCoy's quarters."

There is a light that flashes across McCoy's eyes. He wrings his hands for a moment before starting to walk, realizes that he doesn't know where to go, so he comes back. However, he can't hold still, the excitement, the fear, the sudden bottomless pit that opened inside his gut; it's too much so he ends up pacing awkwardly while he waits for Kirk to download the information to a PADD.

"I'll take you, but you have to calm down." Kirk grips his arm tight, fingers digging into the fabric and skin beneath to make sure he knows that this is real, that this isn't another dream. McCoy nods, playing with his now short hair for a moment. "Don't worry, she won't even know the difference." McCoy doubts that but to see Joanna again overrides all rational thought. He'd do anything to see her again, including killing Kirk for the map in his hand that he doesn't seem to want to give up just yet.

McCoy's eyes dart around the room, focus on a loose pipe and an old-fashioned wrench with which he could cave in Kirk's skull, perforate his windpipe, crush his voice box. He figures three blows would get him to crack through the hard bone to get to the tender tissue inside. From then he calculates two blows will be enough to destroy enough soft tissue to kill Kirk or at least leave him without the ability for motor-function or sentient thought. When Kirk busies himself with the PADD, he turns slightly, extends his hand to reach for the wrench-

"Are you ready?" Kirk claps his hand on McCoy's arm. "You okay there, Lenny? Let's go find your girl." Before McCoy can think on it further, Kirk ushers him out of the cargo bay. 

They walk along the corridors, take a turbolift and unlike on their ship, this one is a bustling hub of people, but none of them seem suspicious of their presence. Some even clap Kirk on the shoulder, express their congratulations on a job well done, and are in general very pleased with them. Kirk only allows them to be stopped once or twice, cites post-mission debriefs to get them going again. It goes well, very well, Kirk tells him, explains that he has no doubt that full crew integration will occur within twenty-four hours, that they can be on their way, a whole new, happy family. McCoy smiles at that while briefly imagining Kirk's brain seeping out of his flattened, cracked skill.

"Here we are." Jim stops in front of a set of quarters and looks around. They are quite close to Sickbay, something he isn't happy with.

Kirk gets that look on his face, eyes half narrowed, mouth slightly pursed when something doesn't read right with him. McCoy assumes it is because of their chances to be discovered. Though McCoy thinks quarters this close to Sickbay are sensible. He would not have resorted to living there. The smell of death was so hard to get out of one's uniform.

"Do I-" McCoy puts his hand on the door. "Do I just go in?"

"They're your quarters now." Kirk nods, encouraging him. "Your quarters, your Sickbay, your daughter, right behind that door."

McCoy places his hand on the door opening mechanism. The door opens and suddenly, McCoy's face settles, his body seems to calm down. He feels his thoughts slow, organize and he nods at Kirk before walking into the door without hesitation. It closes behind him and with a quick move of his hand, he engages the locking mechanism, highest priority. Kirk's access codes cannot override his medical emergency codes. He takes a deep breath and steps further into the quarters.

The tiny corridor opens into a small living room and eating area with a table and a couple of chairs. There, Joanna sits quietly. A little satchel hangs around her shoulder; and she is wearing a comm badge on her purple romper, all ready for Red Alert and potential evacuation. When he moves closer, McCoy can see she is working on something on a PADD, lost in whatever she is doing, her hair falling into her face.

"Joanna?" He remembers her, dark hair, green eyes full of energy and joy, those long limbs like a foal, like her body hasn't quite grown into them yet. She is younger than he remembers, smaller, more fragile. She looks up from the PADD with a smile before returning to her work. He remembers that smile.

"Hey Dad!" She holds up the PADD. "I'm writing mom a letter."

Her smile shows off her dimples, her rosy cheeks. McCoy feels his throat constrict, the air seep out of his lungs. There she is, the most precious thing in the entire universe, safe, unharmed, and he can't quite bring himself to believe she is real.

"Sweetpea?" His voice cracks a little, and suddenly, he can't stop the tears from leaking out of his eyes.

"Right here where you left me." She is still smiling. "Spock confined me to quarters as soon as you left. He said it was illogical to leave me to roam about the ship. Did you find Hikaru okay? I knew you would becau-" She stops when she notices his tears. "Is he okay? Daddy?" She gets up and before she can say anything else, he pulls her into a tight hug, tears streaming freely across his face. He holds her tight, he needs to, he needs to hold her close and tight so she can't leave, so she can't be hurt.

"Daddy!" She pushes at him. "Daddy, you're hurting me!"

He lets her go immediately and slumps onto the ground.

"I'm sorry. I am so sorry sweetpea.” He starts babbling but he can’t help himself. “I didn’t mean to.  I didn't mean it, I'm sorry. I'm..." He trails off and looks at her with a smile. "It's okay. I'm okay. Everything is okay now."

She stands in front of him, watches him with a curious look in her eyes when suddenly they widen and her eyebrows rise."Daddy! You're bleeding!" She grabs her satchel as he looks down. Sure enough, there is a patch of red seeping through his shirt. He thinks it should be making purple, not the brownish black it actually is. 

"Huh, I am." But he is too distracted by Joanna, by her presence, her breathing, her worried little face. He pulls her close again, holds her, not as tight as before. Her scent, she smells right, perfect, like a little girl should. "I missed you so much, sweetpea." She returns his embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"It was only a few hours."

"Felt like a lifetime to me." He snuggles her closer, shakes her a bit.

"You're silly, Dad." He chuckles and she smiles. "Can I look at your wound now?" Spoken like a budding nurse, doctor, surgeon, such a bright future ahead of her with so many options and choices to make and McCoy wants to be there for every single one of them. "Please?"

"I'll be fine, Joanna. We'll go to Sickbay in a few minutes."

"It's okay, Dad."  Her voice is firm as she pulls a small dermal regenerator from her satchel, prepared for everything. This McCoy really must have cared about her, too. "I'll take care of you."

"Okay." He nods and carefully pulls at his shirt, not thinking about the scars she will see underneath. She has to help him get it over his head. The pain of the wound suddenly returns with a vengeance. Leave it to Kirk to give him an analgesic that wears off after only a couple of hours. When he gets the shirt over his head, he doesn't at first realize that Joanna is slowly moving away from him.

"Joanna?" He looks at her, confused why she is so far away all of a sudden.

"You're not my dad." Her fist closes tight around the regenerator, like she's holding a weapon. McCoy can't help but feel more proud.

"Yes, I am." His voice is calm, as long as he stays calm he can will this to go away.

"My dad doesn't have those scars." She takes another step backward, inching closer to the door.

"I have them now."

"Okay," she narrows her eyes, "where are they from?"

"That's a long story, sweetpea." He sighs, but he doesn't get up or try to go after her. The door is locked, she has nowhere to run. She doesn't though. She moves closer to him again, tentative at first, but when he flinches at the pain she is by his side, flicking on the small device in her hand and moving it slowly over his wound. She crouches beside him, a sign she doesn't trust him, not yet, possibly not ever, but she is here, she didn't run. McCoy closes his eyes.

"You're very good with that." He places his hand over hers, correcting her movement slightly. She nods and continues the way he showed her.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you."

One thing McCoy is not used to is compassion, especially not compassion coming from his beautiful daughter who is now kneeling beside him. His beautiful daughter he thought he would never see again. His beautiful daughter he last saw slumping lifeless to the ground after he had pulled the trigger on an old fashioned bullet rifle. He doesn't want to remember what came before that, doesn't want to allow those memories back into his mind, not when she is right here.  
   
"It's okay, sweetpea." He can't do anything to stop the flow of tears or calm his shaking voice. "It's okay because I get to see you again." He can't describe the joy he feels, the unbelievable relief, the happiness. All he knows is that it feels lie his heart slotted back into the right place after years of beating out of synch with the rest of him. Joanna moves the dermal regenerator a bit, watching the wound slowly repair.

"You're from the other ship, aren't you?"

"Yeah." He should have lied. Kirk coached him on this: denial until she starts believing him. Nothing could have prepared him for this, and he refuses to jeopardize what he has right now, what he could have, what the future may hold.

"So there is another Enterprise, with another Jim and another Hikaru?"

"I guess you could say that." He smiles. She probably always kept her ears open for news about them, overheard things everyone believed to be beyond the grasp of her tender age. McCoy knows better, know how smart his daughter is.  
"Is there another me?" She looks up at him, green eyes and all and it breaks his heart all over again. He can't say it, not again, so instead he simply shakes his head trying to fight back the sobs lodging in his throat.

"But there was?" She waits patiently as he tries to find air to breathe, to soothe the pain, the realization that this is not his daughter but someone else's child.

"There was." Suddenly, it's like her death had just happened, like he had just pulled that trigger to save her from a fate worse than death. The sound that comes from his lips sounds unreal to him. "And I miss you so much."

Joanna crawls into his laps and wraps her arms around his neck, one hand gently caressing his hair. She lets him cry for a while, lets him cling to her, like she understands, like she knows. McCoy doesn't know how much time passes, how long they just sit on the floor clinging to each other. He feels a bit of wet on his neck and knows she is crying, too.

"It wasn't your fault." She whispers in his ear. "It wasn't. I can tell."

She lets him pick her up, still holding her close. He's not sure if he has enough energy to carry her to the bed, his body suddenly feels like it is made from lead. The bedroom is a tiny room, taken up mostly by the bed. McCoy carefully sits Joanna on it before crawling in and sliding under the covers thoroughly exhausted.

"I'm sorry, sweetpea. It's all just- it's all too much."

"It's okay." Instead of taking advantage of the moment and running away, she shimmies under the covers beside him, curls up and snuggles her back against his chest. The last thing he realizes before he drifts off to sleep is that she takes his arm and wraps it around her.

 

 **Chapter 8**

  
When Leonard wakes up, Hikaru lets out a breath he doesn't remember holding. Dragging a paralyzed Leonard through a corridor, listening to his breath suddenly just stop... that's not something he ever wants to relive. Ever. He is sitting on he bio-bed beside the one Leonard is laying on. That's as close as Christine would let him. 'He needs rest, Lieutenant.' in that stern don't fuck with me tone and Hikaru sat on his ass but he hasn't moved since. Nurse Katie brought him a protein shake a few hours ago so she wouldn't have to treat him for malnutrition next. Feisty seems to run in Sickbay today.

"How are you feeling?" Hikaru wants to touch, wants to feel that he's okay, but he'd rather not risk getting kicked out of Sickbay right now.

The first noises from Leonard's mouth slur together but don't form words. He has a hard time moving still, something Christine predicted would happen. Apparently, Kirk had injected him with a particularly nasty neurotoxin, self-replicating, almost impossible to remove from the system, but not completely as three hours of hard work proven. Jim had stopped by several times but Hikaru had stayed the whole time, for both of them. Leonard tries to talk again, but the words slur beyond the point of recognition. He screws up his face with frustration which makes Hikaru screw the rules and slide off the bed and grab his hand.

"Don't worry about that," he smiles, "Christine said she turned off your mouth to get some peace and quiet." That gets an eyeroll and a lopsided grimace that could have been a smile. "Seriously though, your heart stopped twice. You gotta take it easy."

"Wrong Pavel," Hikaru looks at Chekov who has come closer to the bio-bed, but careful still to keep his distance. He grimaces at Hikaru's address. "Get some water." Without a word, Chekov nods and comes back with a sipping pouch of water and Christine. Hikaru mumbles something about not having asked for the gatekeeper, but he moves aside to allow Christine to work.

"Good morning, Leonard." She smiles and scans him. "Looks like we got most of it out of your system and your body is getting rid of the rest. I'm giving you something to help your body speed up the process."

Leonard doesn't seem particularly impressed with that. He furrows his brow and tries again. "Juhn'ah!"

"Your muscle control will be impeded for a while longer I'm afraid." Christine pats his arm, but Leonard shakes off her touch and tries to sit up. He fails, flailing wildly and the sound of helplessness that escapes him in a wail breaks Hikaru's heart.

"It's okay, Len." He doesn't care about protocol, propriety, or Christine's rules, he sits on the edge of the bio-bed, grabs Leonard and helps him sit up. "It's okay, I'm here. You're safe, just calm down, okay. Breathe." Leonard grips Hikaru's forearms hard, but he is trying to control his breathing. Hikaru guides his breath for a few minutes, whispers soft things into his ear. He doesn't care that this level of intimacy is usually just reserved for behind the closed doors of their quarters. Leonard needs him, needs him right now and he sure as hell isn't going to not be there. He just wishes Jim was here with him, but he's busy trying to find all the crew members that beamed over and sort out all the technology that came with them. Soon, Leonard, calms down, his grip on Hikaru's arms lessens, but he doesn't let go.

"That's it." Hikaru smiles. "You're doing well, so well Len. Take a breath and try again, okay?"

"Juhn'ah'ah," Leonard lets out another noise of frustration.

"Joanna?" Hikaru smoothes Leonard's hair.

"She is safe in your quarters," Christine smiles. "I checked up on her about an hour ago."

But Leonard shakes his head, grabs at Hikaru's shirt almost as aggravated as before.

"She's not?" Hikaru looks at him, trying to read him. "Why? What's going on?" Leonard looks around for a second and then locks eyes with Chekov. It takes Hikaru less than a second to jump off the bed and reach for his phaser. He knows what he means, and he's right, Joanna is in danger. He ignores Christine's questions, Leonard slumping back onto the bed, relieved, is all he needs to reassure him that he's right. He can hear footsteps behind him and with a half turn and a quick grab, he slams Chekov into the wall.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?!" He's angry, very angry, and really wishes his hands were wrapped around that little weasel's neck. He doesn't have time, though. He needs to get to Joanna now, right now, twenty minutes ago. With a growl he pushes Chekov away and continues to run toward Leonard's quarters.

"I didn't know, I swear!" Chekov continues after him.

"You knew about everything that goes on on that ship!" Hikaru halts in front of Leonard's quarters and slams his hand on the chime, then the lock override. Nothing.

"Kirk planned on leaving me behind, how much do you think I would know?" "I hid when they came. Kirk keeps trying to kill me, so I hid inside my cage, okay? I couldn't hear what was going on! I only came out when I knew they left."

"You're one of them!  You're still a god damned boy genius. Kirk wouldn't let an asset like that just be killed." Hikaru is distracted by the door refusing to open.  
"I hid when they came. Kirk keeps trying to kill me, so I hid inside my  
cage, okay? I was scared, I couldn't hear what was going on! I only came out when I  
knew they left."

Hikaru's face softens and he opens his mouth to reassure Chekov.  
“Chekov!” Montgomery’s voice comes from behind them. “You need to come with me.”

“Why?” For a moment, Chekov looks young and shy again.

“We need your help.” Montgomery’s face softens. “We have a bunch of tech aboard that I can’t make heads or tails of. You all right if I steal the lad Hikaru?”

 _He doesn’t know_ is the first thing that runs through Hikaru’s mind and so he nods and quickly agrees before Chekov can say anything. When they disappear around the corner, Hikaru hacks his way into the door and it feels like the old days when they would sneak into each others’ rooms without any access codes.

He expects a hostage situation; he expects McCoy to put up a fight; he even half expects to find Joanna maimed and dead. He expects anything but Joanna curled up in Leonard’s bed in the arms of his psychopathic alter, sleeping peacefully. Hikaru needs a moment to sit down before he gently wakes them.

 **  
**

**Chapter 9**

  
Leonard wakes up in Sickbay and looks around, confused and uncertain, everything feels like a dream, like his brain is refusing to realize that he’s woken up feeling like shit one too many times in the span of this mission

“Oh good, you are awake.” Christine smiles. “How are you feeling?”

“Christine?” His chest aches, and his limbs feel like lead and his brain is still not cooperating. “What's going on?”

“Before I tell you anything else, Hikaru contacted me. Joanna is safe in your quarters with him.”  
“Oh.” Everything comes back to him in a single moment. He remembers Jim dragging him along a corridor. He remembers being terrified, only he realizes that terror is still sitting in his bones.  
“ You were injected with a poison, took a bit rough to the antidote but you're fine.” She scans him just to make sure.

“ Where are they?” Leonard forces himself to sit up. He’s nauseous but his worry outweighs his discomfort.

“In your quarters.”  She puts the scanner away. “You're okay to leave but no strenuous activity for 24 hours. Nurse’s orders.”

“ No, where are the others? The alternates? The other us…es?”

“From what I was told, they are being round up in the brig and cargo bay. Most of their crew ended up over here apparently.”

“ Most of their crew?”  He blinks. “You mean the entire fucking ship?”

“ 98 of them made it from what we can tell. Most of them are disoriented and retching their guts out. Hence the lack of anyone in Sickbay.” Leonard looks around and Christine is right. Aside from her and two other nurses, there is no one in Sickbay, not even other patients.

“ We're surrounded by psychopaths.” He can feel the colour drain from his face. He feels ill and suddenly, Joanna seems a lot less safe with Hikaru in his quarters.

“ Really?” She gives him a look. “Because the men I treated were exhausted, malnourished and extremely grateful for my help.”

“ You obviously didn't meet the other me.”

“ I haven't. He's probably kept in the brig where all the alternate senior staff is held  until we find out what's going on. Granted half of them seem to be missing still-“

Leonard staggers off the bio-bed and heads for his office,  thinking he will have to redo the entire place to make it look different from over there, from that torture chamber of horrors. He activates the comm.

“McCoy to Kirk.”

  
“Kirk here, how are you feeling, Bones?” Jim sounds relieved, but there is a lot of background noise where he is.

  
“Like I got poisoned and asphyxiated. What the hell are we doing with 90-odd psychopaths?”

“We'll see when we find them all. If you're okay to leave, I'm just in front of your quarters.”

“On my way.”  He scowls but makes his way out of Sickbay, and waves at Christine as he goes. It takes him a little longer before he's in front of his quarters and he's really starting to feel miserable. “Hey.” He grunts at Jim. “I may throw up on you.”

“You okay?” Jim runs a hand over his back and he’s glad for the touch.

“ No, not really, but I'll deal.” Before he opens the door to his quarters Leonard pulls Jim into a careful embrace, needing a moment. He can feel Jim's surprise for a moment but then he wraps his arms around Leonard, tight and warm.

“Thanks for helping to get me out of there.”

“ Yeah... it's okay.” Jim glances over Leonard’s shoulder but holds him tight until Leonard pulls away after a few long moments.

“Okay, I have to check on Joanna.” He keys in the code to open the door.

“ Sure, I'll let you two have your moment and hang back.” Jim encourages him with a pat on the back. He, too, wants to make sure Joanna is safe, wants to know she’s all right. He enters Leonard’s quarters a few moments later just in time to hear a shout from the bedroom.

“What the hell?!”  Leonard shouts to the surreal image of himself on his bed with Joanna in his arms, only himself and beside them, Hikaru is sitting in a chair. Joanna startles awake at the sudden noise. Rage boils inside him, narrows his world until all he can see is Joanna in McCoy’s arms.  

“Daddy!”  Joanna’s face lights up until she realizes the noise are screams coming from her father.  “Daddy?”

“Come here,  sweetpea.” Leonard  manages to barely wrangle his emotions, manages not to shout. He extends his arms in a silent please, because all that matters right now is to get Joanna away from McCoy. Beside Joanna, McCoy looks around, confused.

“It’s okay, Daddy.”  She looks between them, uncertain. “He’s just sad.”

“Joanna.” Leonard is trying hard to keep his temper.  All he wants it Joanna to move away from that bed and come to him. “Come here, right now.” There is a hand on his shoulder, but before he can shake it off, he hears Hikaru’s voice.  
“Hey,” the hand moves in soothing circles, the last thing Leonard needs right now, “calm down.”

“Joanna Marie McCoy,” Leonard ignores Hikaru, “get over here now! Don’t make me ask you again!”

“Daddy, don’t yell!” She doesn’t move.

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do, young lady!” And when Leonard sees her hand gripping the shaking hand of McCoy, he lunges.

“Len, don’t!” Somehow, Hikaru manages to wedge himself between Leonard and the bed, preventing him from getting to Joanna, from getting her away from that man- that monster. Leonard screams in frustration and Joanna bursts into loud sobs, hiding her face in McCoy’s arm, that monster’s arm.  He tries to make for the bed again but Hikaru put his weight against Leonard and wrestles him toward the living area.

“Jo, stay put.” Leonard hears Hikaru tell her calmly, and then he is pushed into the wall hard enough for his head to bounce off the metal panels.  “Calm. The fuck. Down.” Hikaru hisses into his ear.

“She chose him over me!” He can’t help his trembling hands or the nausea surging in his stomach.  His heart is racing, and suddenly his legs won’t support him.  Hikaru sighs and helps Leonard onto the sofa and kisses his forehead.

“This is why I wanted you to calm down.”

“Fuck you.” But it’s tired, Leonard suddenly feeling utterly exhausted.

“Not right now.” Hikaru smiles and sits down beside him. “Now can I explain what’s going on?” Leonard nods, quiet, too tired fight, and Hikaru explains how he found them. “He holds her like you do, Len.”

“He tried to take her away from me.”

“Then why is he still here?”

“No, the other Ji-,” he pauses, “the other Captain.” It feels like betrayal to call that man Jim.

“She’s safe now.”  Hikaru drapes his arm around Leonard’s shoulders and pulls him close.

“I’m not going to apologize.”

“You don’t have to.” Hikaru looks at him. “Just…what would either of us have done in his place? In what kind of fucked up situation is taking the life of your own child the more humane option?” When Leonard looks away, Hikaru takes his hand. “Look, she made me promise to never let this happen to you, to never let you become him. Jojo is a smart kid.”  
“Then why is she still over there and not here with me where she belongs?” Leonard makes a fist, still shaken from everything that’s happened to him, still angry, still feeling betrayed.

“You scared the shit out of her.” Hikaru’s tone isn’t accusing. “You scared everyone. You scared the hell out of me.”  
“Do you know how I felt? How I feel?” Leonard feels the anger boiling under the surface, the bile creep back into his throat. “Knowing what he did to me, what he did to you? What the two of them tried to do?”

“Yeah,” Hikaru grits his teeth, “I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Then why the hell are you surprised I yelled?”

“I’m not, but she doesn’t know.” He leans to kiss Leonard softly. “She has no idea what happened on that ship.” Leonard accepts the kiss, exhausted, desperately wanting this to be over, but when he opens his eyes, he realizes the room is lacking something important.

“Where is Jim?”

“In engineering, helping Pavel, Chekov, and Scotty with the new tech that was beamed over.”  
   
“God damn it! I’ll have to damn well tag you all!” Leonard gets up, frustrated that he didn’t notice the difference between the two Jims, even worse that he didn’t notice Kirk had left the living room at one point during his meltdown.  “I should have known. He was surprised when I hugged him.”

“At least,” Hikaru holds up his empty holster, “we know he is with my phaser.”

Before they can say anything further, Joanna rushes out of the bedroom with tears in her eyes. “Daddy, help!”

Leonard has Joanna in his arms before he can say anything, before he remembers that he is supposed to be angry still.

“What happened?” He smoothes her tears away, checking for injury. “Are you okay?”

“There’s something wrong with him.” She looks to the bedroom, Hikaru rushes there.

“Len! Bring the med kit! He can’t breathe!”

On Leonard’s bed, McCoy is gripping the sheets, body taut, shaking, his lips are blue and eyes are rolling into the back of his head. Leonard puts Joanna in the chair beside the bed and scans McCoy while Hikaru attempts to put McCoy on his side.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on in there, but it’s not good.” From the chair, Joanna makes a distressed noise and Leonard comms Sickbay for an emergency transport. “Stay with her! And find me the wrong Chekov!” He’s kneeling on the bed, medical bag, all anger and fatigue gone from his face. “Meet me in Sickbay, and don’t let her out of your sight!” He disappears in a flurry of light and Hikaru picks up Joanna.

 

 **Chapter 10**

  
In engineering, Chekov and Pavel are working quietly, in an uneasy alliance to account for and disable some of the technology beamed over by Kirk. Jim is talking quietly to Montgomery about what they can do to account for everyone and everything that isn’t supposed to be aboard.

“I can try to program the computer to scan for the temporal distortion in the metals, but it’s a wee trickier for people.”  
Jim nods and runs his hand over his face. Chekov understands his frustration. First, his lover was kidnapped, and then a bunch of people just dropped in to take over his ship, his life. He can relate more than he likes to admit, but his thoughts are interrupted when he hears Montgomery speculating about the amount of time it would take to complete the programming.

“Maybe five hours, four if I can-“

“There’s a scanning device.” Chekov climbs down the ladder to the platform where Jim and Montgomery are. “We have a scanning device, machinery, people, you name it, if it isn’t supposed to be in this timeline, it will find it.”  
Jim looks at him for a long while. “Where?” Nothing else, and Chekov gets it, the cold looks, the curt questions and answers. He isn’t wanted here.

“At the bottom of container 47 B underneath a pile of coil spanners to make it look like there are only spare parts in there.”

“And how do you know this?” Jim’s eyes narrow.

“Packed the container myself. To hide it from Kirk.”

“Verify what he says is true. We need all the help we can get.” Jim nods at Montgomery. “If it’s safe to you, scan every deck, every crevasse. I want these people and their tech off my ship as soon as possible.” He turns to Chekov. “You and I, we’re going to have a talk. I want to know why you’re so eager to help.”

“Captain, I-“ Chekov begins but he is interrupted by Hikaru rushing into engineering, Joanna in his arms.

“Where’s Chekov?!” He’s out of breath, the comm systems are still down.

“Here,” Pavel looks down from the upper level but Hikaru dismisses him with a shake of the head.

“No, the wrong Chekov…you.” He looks at Chekov. “You need to come to Sickbay right now.”

  
“Why?”

It takes Hikaru a couple of minutes to explain what has been going on, the McCoys, Joanna, transporters going down right after Leonard beamed to Sickbay with McCoy, climbing three decks through Jeffries' Tubes with Joanna because Turbolift 7, 3 and 8 are glitching and 4 is completely inaccessible. At one point, Hikaru realizes he's close to rambling and he closes his mouth mid-sentence. It must have been an important sentence because Chekov crosses the distance between them in a heart beat and grabs him by the shirt.

"What happened?!"

Before he can say anything else, Jim pulls him away and pushes him against the wall. "Don't touch him!" He glowers for a moment, but instead of growling and wrestling Chekov the floor, he sees Chekov's face, desperation and worry written all over it. Jim's face softens. "Sit before you hurt yourself. Hikaru, what did Bones say about McCoy's state?"

"Just that he couldn't make sense of the readings and to get Chekov." Hikaru sets down Joanna who runs over to Jim.

"Hey there, Jojo." Jim picks her up with a smile. "Want to help Scotty and me sort a bunch of junk?" When she makes a face, he laughs. "It'll be fun."

"Look here, lass." Montgomerny smiles and lays out a spread of tools. "You pick the parts you like and we'll make you a cute little robot pony."

"May I have a T-Rex instead?" Joanna's voice is quiet and when Jim gives her a look, she adds "Please".

"One Robo-T-Rex coming up."

Jim lets Joanna slip from his arms and hop onto the chair beside Montgomery's work bench. He watches them for a moment as though to convince himself that they'll be fine and turns back to Hikaru who has settled against a railing with a small smile on his face when in the background, Joanna's voice insists that the RoboRex be pink. He really wants nothing more than pull Jim close for a kiss, for reassuring touch that things are going to be all right. But he can't, not right now. There's too much going on.

They stand in silence for a while. Engineering was one of the few places they had completely secured against the other ship's crew. They also had Sickbay which worked to their advantage, but the bridge had been infiltrated by Kirk and his crew. Spock had been able to send a message to Jim and reroute most of the command chain to Engineering. The crew members in the cargo bays were secured but they had suffered great losses. At least 40 casualties, nearly 100 missing, and with internal sensors only working sporadically finding out details wasn't quite as easy. Hikaru runs his hand over his face. There's too much to think about, too much they need to fix and it's very, very hard not to get lost.  
"Wrong Chekov and I are going to head back to Sickbay." Sometimes it was best to focus on the task at hand, tunnel vision and all that. Not looking left or right, just go ahead and do what needs to be done. And right now, that included climbing up ten decks because the turbo lifts weren't cooperating.

"Hold up, lad!" Montgomery steps away from his work bench. “The emergency medical transporter is on a different grid than the main transporter system. If you give me a second…” He starts fidgeting with some controls and runs across to the other side of Engineering. "If I can just... oh come on will you!" He hits the console and suddenly it hums obediently. "That's my girl." He caresses the console with love and smiles. "Now, let’s transport these nice lads to Sickbay without strewing their molecules all over ship, yeah?"

"Well," Hikaru gives Jim a look. Montgomery's words aren't particularly confidence inducing, "if we don't make it, you know how I feel." Though he knows that without him, they'd not be alive many, many times over. So he trusts him when he tells Hikaru and Chekov to stand in a specific spot; and he holds his breath when he's told not to move. Transporting is usually a smooth affair. You barely feel a sort of tingling in your feet and in the back of your head. It's easier if you don't think about the fact that the tingling indicates your body being taken apart atom by atom, vaporized and reconstructed somewhere else.

It is so common place that Hikaru doesn't usually think about this, but when he feels the beam, it's like a punch in the gut and when he rematerializes, he's gasping for air. Beside him, Chekov sounds similar and Hikaru feels a bit better when Chekov is the one throwing up and not him. There's a soft hiss and he instantly feels much better. Christine gives him a once over and when she's sure he's fine, she moves on to Chekov. Hikaru looks around, finds Leonard standing beside a biobed. He's hunched over scanners, studying them, eyebrows furrowed with frustration. If there weren't so many people around, Hikaru would wrap his arms around him and distract him for a little while. Instead, he walks close, quietly and places his arm on Leonard's shoulder.

"I brought the wrong Chekov with me."

"Good." Leonard turns to Chekov. "Wrong Chekov, what the hell is wrong with him?"

Chekov flinches briefly, but then he stands up straight and looks Leonard in the eye. "My name is Pavel Andreievitch Chekov. Call me Chekov or Pavel or Lieutenant or fuck, 'other' Chekov, I don't care, but please, _please_ stop calling me 'wrong'. I'm not wrong. Since I've come here, I have done nothing but help you people. So for the love of fuck, show me the smallest amount of respect and stop calling me wrong!"

Silence falls on Sickbay, not just because this is the most anyone has heard Chekov say since he beamed aboard but also because he is telling the truth. Despite everything, he has been helping them. He helped rescue them from the other ship. Hikaru feels for him. They haven't made it easy for him, suspicious the whole time. Now that Chekov finished, he's standing beside the biobed, useless, face oddly flat, staring at McCoy, looking... with love. Suddenly, it makes sense, falls into place and Hikaru knows, understands because he'd do the same.

"Chekov," he says softly, "how can we help him?" Chekov doesn't reply at first, but he takes the PADD Leonard gives him.  
For a while, he is quiet. His jaw sets and his fingers tighten around the edges of the PADD. He's pale, paler than before and the years he has on Pavel are particularly obvious now. His lips tighten to a thin white line before he tosses the PADD back at Leonard.

"He hasn't been purged." Despite having no idea what Chekov is talking about, Hikaru can see his anger. "He forgets if no one reminds him!"

"God damn it, man, just tell me what's going on!" Leonard is looking at the monitor, McCoy's life sign displayed in a thin line. "I don't know how much longer we can keep him alive!"

"Purged," Chekov takes back the PADD and lets his fingers fly over it, "we... acquired technology that allows us to travel along streams of time, like a river. There are many tributaries, each its own timeline, but it comes at a cost. Our bodies are flooded with Chronitons that aren't part of our timeline. Too many and our bodies begin to shut down. We have technology that purges them, but it takes a lot of energy and toll on the body, so we never moved often until recently, it became more and more." He reads the PADD. "He hasn't been purged in weeks according to this."

"Tell me your crazy Captain brought that technology over when he started taking over this ship."

"Yeah, but it would take forever to look for it. I brought aboard one of our medical scanning devices which can be modified. It's in Engineering. I can modify it, but it will take a lot of power."

"How much power are we talking?" Hikaru leans to look at the PADD. "Shit. That's-"

"Enough to knock out internal scanners, shields, warp drive, or weapons."

“For one person?”

“There’s a reason we were on emergency power when you came aboard. It takes a lot of power. If it didn’t, the Captain would have already taken the ship.”

Hikaru walks to the comm. station and calls Engineering. Joanna tells him and Leonard about Georgette, the pink T-Rex while Montgomery fishes the scanner from the storage unit. When she finishes, Jim appears in the viewscreen. He looks a mixture of tired and determined when he addresses Chekov. They talk about the logistics and whether or not the safety of the vessel would be compromised. They agree that reducing power output across a variety of systems would be favourable to shutting down a single entity. Chekov works quietly with Leonard and Montgomery and before Hikaru can feel uselessly out of place, Christine puts a scanner in his hand and tells him to check McCoy’s vitals in two-minute intervals. Then, the lights dim when the device comes online and Leonard pats Chekov on the back.

“Good work, kid.” He begins treatment and watches the monitors. “When this is done, can we use the device to scan for the people from your ship?”

“Yes, we just have to adjust the correct temporal frequency.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way but I can’t wait to get you people off this ship.” He glances at the monitor. “Only 37 more minutes and he’ll be as good as- well, he will be better physically.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Chekov’s smile is small and interrupted by the opening of the Sickbay doors and a rather beat up Captain Kirk stumbling in. It only takes a split second before a half dozen phasers point at him , but he just slowly raises his hands.

“Help,”is all he says before he collapses to the floor.

 

 **Chapter 11**

  
Jim comes to slowly, the sound of muffled voices slowly penetrating the darkness around him at first. As they become clearer, he slowly moves his eyes trying to open them just a crack. He groans when they open wide and the light forces its way into his optical nerve all at once. He blinks a few times and moves his arm to cover them, but his arm won't comply. He turns his head slightly and when his eyes begin to adjust, he can see the braces that firmly attach his arm to the biobed. Not just his arm, he realizes, the other too, his legs and ankles as well, and when he tries to squirm, he can feel a band across his torso and neck. There are two armed guards at the foot of his bed.

 _'They think I'm Kirk.'_

"He's awake, Doctor." Christine's voice is cold. "I have healed his wounds as instructed."

"Thank you, Nurse." Bones moves into the field of Jim's vision. His eyes are dark and determined and there is something in them that makes Jim feel... scared. He’s surprised by this. It’s Leonard, Bones, his Bones, loving father, badass surgeon…

"Bones, it's me." He's not sure he's ever felt this helpless before. "What do you want me to say? How can I prove it?" Jim begins naming off encounters that he thinks only they would know about. but Bones puts his hand over Jim's mouth.

"We'll find out soon enough. Once McCoy here has been purged, we'll use the device to scan for the chronitons. That’s when we’ll find out.” He moves his hand slightly to cover Jim’s nose as well. “And then, we’ll find out where you are hiding my daughter.” Jim turns his head, tries to get Leonard’s hand off his face. Fight or flight instinct kicking in and there is no way to ‘flight’. Jim bites down hard. He hears Bones swear and the next thing he sees are flecks of white sparks when the back of Leonard’s hand connects with his face.

Jim can hear Hikaru whisper quietly to Bones He can’t understand the individual words, but the tone is soothing, calm and collected. Whatever he’s telling Bones, the man agrees to with a growled ‘fine’ and Jim can feel him stepping away from the biobed.

“Scotty is working on internal scanners. The transporters are offline, so wherever he stashed Joanna, it is on this ship and we’ll find her, even faster once the scanners are online. He made a mistake trying to fool us in Sickbay. He probably wanted to get to the emergency transporter to take him and Joanna back to their ship. He’s desperate.” Hikaru pulls Bones closer; Jim can hear the rustling of their uniforms.

“I should be out there with you.” Bones’ voice is thick with held-back tears and Jim can feel his chest tighten. He can’t hear what Hikaru replies, but Bones stays and Hikaru leaves with Chekov.

“Bones,” Jim tries again, because he has to because he has to prove to Leonard that he is Jim and he’d never hurt Joanna. Bones sighs and looks at him for a long time before he pulls the privacy shutters around the bed. Now they might as well be in a different room.

“So you really want to talk, huh?” Bones pulls a chair beside the bed. Jim sighs with relief when he removes the neck strap. “How about this: I ask you questions and you answer them honestly.”  
Jim nods slowly. He doesn’t know what else to do, and perhaps his answers will convince Bones that it really is him.  
“Where is my daughter?” Apparently this isn’t going to be about finding out whether or not Jim is who he says he is.  
“Bones, I don’t know. I-“  
“Don’t call me that!” His eyes are nearly black with rage and Jim begins to worry whether or not he cares anymore.  
“Listen to me, please! I was on my way here from Engineering with Joanna. Kirk attacked me and when I woke up, I came straight here.”

“Isn’t that convenient?” Bones’ face distorts to a grimace of disgust.

“It’s the truth!” Jim is trying not to get angry but it’s hard not to. He’s known the man for longer than he’s known anyone. They share a life, a partner, a child and yet here he was tied to a fucking biobed. “If I was Kirk why the fuck would I come here?”

“Emergency transporters. You probably inflicted those wounds yourself. Where is my daughter?”

Jim screams in frustration. He knows the privacy shutters will absorb any noise he makes but it doesn’t matter. He’s sore, tired, he wants his life back and above all, he wants these other versions of themselves of their damned ship. Bones patiently waits, busying himself with a hypo spray and when Jim’s scream ebbs he looks at him.

“Where is my daughter?”

“I don’t know.” There is a hiss and Jim can feel an injection on his arm. “What the hell Bones?!”  
“Don’t worry, it’s not poison.” Bones gently smoothes the hair from Jim’s forehead. “Just a little something to help you relax and feel safe, so you can tell me the truth.”

The effects are almost instantaneous. The world begins to swim a bit and an odd warmth tingles in his hands and feet. He feels a bit like he’s sinking and takes a deep breath. "Now, let us wait for a few moments while we wait for it to spread throughout your body?" Bones' voice is soft, friendly, like he would talk to a sick child. That's probably the worst part, how calm and collected he is about this whole thing. Jim closes his eyes but there's a nudge at his arm. "No, no, stay with me. I want to tell you a story."

"Please..." Jim isn't sure what else he wanted to say.

"Don't try to talk, _Captain_." Bones smiles and Jim's world swims away. "The drug is designed to allow you to only answer direct questions. It takes a few minutes to reach full effect and I need to tell you a story of how I learned the best way to deal with people from your timeline. Remember back on your ship when you let your goons torture Hikaru to get me to 'volunteer' to McCoy's pet?" Jim tries to shake his head but Bones pats his cheeks.

"Of course you do. Because you knew exactly what you were doing to me. See, I know you told McCoy that I was what stood between him and Joanna. And you leave a man so sick, so starved for attention and love to his own thoughts, that fucks with his perception and a man like that exerts power any way he can." He caresses Jim's cheek and dimly, in the very far back of his head, Jim hears an alarm go off. An alarm that tells him to get the fuck away, but he can't move , even if he weren't strapped down, he isn't sure he could move.

"He strapped me down, too. Just like this, only he gagged me, too so I wouldn't make a noise. Open your mouth." He presses two fingers against Jim's lips and despite trying to keep them closed, Jim finds himself opening his mouth. When Bones' fingers slide in, he tries to bite down, but his jaw is slack, like there is no strength left in there. Bones easily pushes his mouth open and slides a stress ball just past Jim's teeth. "Yeah, I think it was just like that. You want to know what he did then?" Jim thinks he's shaking his head but everything begins to feel like lead, so he isn't sure.

"You already know, don't you?" Bones smiles and it's cold and dead and somewhere in the bottom of his gut, Jim feels sick. "You know because you were watching the vid feed, weren't you? I saw the cameras. I saw those feeds, just because I was too drugged to remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You watched what he did and I bet," he runs his hand over Jim's chest, "I bet you enjoyed it. A lot, didn't you?"

Jim tries to move, but the leaden weight seems to have sunk into every cell. His mind is slower than before, dizzy, just as heavy. He can still hear the alarm telling him to get away, but he can't, he can't. There's wet on his cheek and the blurred vision tells him that he must be crying.

"You watched as he fucked himself, didn't you? Was it the hottest thing you've ever seen? When he raped a man that looked exactly like him? All tied up and drugged out of his mind and you thought it was hot, didn't you? Because sex is power, isn't it? And you orchestrating someone fucking themselves, oh that must be the most power you've ever had over anything. And you thought I would never find out, I would never see those vids, but stumbled upon them through sheer luck when we found your PADD. And now…"

Bones slowly unties Jim's legs and Jim desperately tries to focus on willing them to move, tries to focus on his right leg to kick Bones away, to jolt him out of whatever has brought him into this mental state. He knows he has to fight, knows if he lets Bones do this, neither of them will ever forgive him.  
"It's always about power with you, isn't it?" Bones pulls Jim's trousers from his legs and Jim takes a deep breath to focus his mind, to steer it away from tumbling into panic. "It was never about getting McCoy his daughter back, it was always about having power over him, power to keep him near because he left you, didn't he? He left you for the pet you thought would distract him. He's too broken to take back his power, but me?" Bones lifts Jims legs into stirrups. "I'm not. And now? I am going to take your power."

Jim feels a hand on his flaccid dick at the same time he feels bile rise in his throat. It was hard to keep concentrating on moving his leg, the hand rough and painful on him, stroking him. He can't feel pleasure or anything past the lead, like his mind was cut off from his body. He feels the world shift and figures he managed to lift his head because he can see his dick now and Bones' hand wrapped around it. It's almost clinical how he notices the skin redden slightly, the blood vessels dilate and expand the spongy tissues within. He watches his cock harden fully, knows that he should want this, he should love this, he should buck his hips into the touch wantonly moan and perhaps his body does just that, he's not sure, but the smile on Bones' face tells him he might be right.

"This is your power, isn't it?" Bones spreads beads of precome over the head. "Something only you had control over. Only you were allowed to make yourself come, wasn't that your rule? McCoy talks a lot just to fill the silence. I learned so much from him. We're going to find Joanna and your crew will be returned to their ship to live out their fucked up lives in your fucked up timeline, but you, you're not going anywhere. You're going to answer for your crimes. You're going to lose your power."

The bile keeps rising in Jim's throat. Bones never told him what had happened in that dungeon of a Sickbay and then they never had the chance to talk. If he'd known how they'd broken him, he would have- he's not even sure what he could have done differently. It's been reacting to circumstance this whole time, and perhaps, perhaps he even deserved this. Maybe this is how Hikaru felt when Jim pretended to assault him; maybe this was how it was meant to be; and maybe, it would be less painful if Jim pretended to be Kirk, if Jim allowed Bones to get all this festering hate out of his system. Maybe if Bones never knew it was him, maybe then they could go back to their lives.

"Look how much you want this, how much you want me to take your power." Bones traces a single finger along Jim's length. All Jim wants is to hold Bones, to make everything right, to turn back time, anything but this. But this is all they have, all Jim has to work with. He somehow finds enough focus to turn his head away, to make Bones think he's ashamed of his reaction, to make him think he's breaking. For a moment, Bones looks at him, takes his chin in his hand and turns Jim's head, examines him briefly. "Maybe that was a little too much, you look like you're about to pass out on me." He reprograms the hypo and injects Jim who can feel the disconnect between his mind and body lift and suddenly, he can feel his arousal race along his dick and up his spine. He's heavy and full and harder than he believes he's ever been.

Despite himself, he moans behind the ball, feels his hips lift off the biobed because he should want this touch, need this touch and the baser parts of his brain want to override anything else. Beside him, Bones chuckles and there is something so cold and empty in that chuckle that Jim regains some control over his mind. He can feel some of the lead lifting from his legs. Whatever Bones just gave him, Jim sends a silent prayer that he has enough strength.  
If he can get Bones to free just one of his arms... he arches his hips off the biobed and moans against the ball, hopes that his eyes are still glazed over enough to look as though he's so desperate for it, he can't help himself, like he needs more. Jim feels disgusted, abuse, and angry but somehow he manages to look like he need, like he wants to be broken. He catches Bones' gaze and lets his head fall back, writhing like a whore, and whatever break the universe decides to give him, Bones falls for it and leans into him.

"You want to touch, huh?"

With another moan, Jim nods and grinds his erection against Bones' leg, to his surprise, Bones is flaccid in his trousers. Part of him is relieved, the other part focuses on Bones releasing his left arm. He runs his hand over Bones' chest, keeping his grip light like he has to strength left.

"That's right," Bones whispers in his ear, "you're my little cockslut now."

Before Bones can say anything else, do anything else, Jim grips him by the hair and slams his forehead into Bones' nose and raises his knees to push him off, reaching for the cuffs on his right arm.

"You little-" Bones' nose is gushing blood and his eyes are black with rage. He looks less like Bones and more like a man possessed and just as he lunges at Jim, Jim manages to wiggle his arm out of the braces. The impact is hard, harder than he anticipated and the drugs are still coursing through his veins. He's dizzy when his head hits the biobed but pushes, bites and claws at Bones who manages to wrap his hands around his throat.

The words coming from him blur together into a cry of rage. Jim's vision fades in and out as he struggles. He can feel the friction of Bones' trousers against his dick as Bones' hands tighten around his neck. He's been so hard and so close and those damned drugs are still running through his body, when Bones pulls him up, Jim can feel the head of his dick scrape over Bones' cold leather belt and he comes the most painful orgasm he’d ever experienced. Instead of the world fading out, instead of dying covered in come forced from him by the man he loves, somehow Jim manages to pull up his knees and kick hard. He can feel Bones’ ribs break under his heel but his mind only knows one thing “off, off OFF!” and he fights, he kicks, punches and screams until they both fall through the privacy screen.

He can barely push himself off the ground before he is hauled to his feet by the two guards. From the corner of his eyes, he can see Christine kneeling beside Bones, but he knows how it looks, he knows they will side with him.

“Scan me!” He shouts, leaning all his weight into the arms holding him up trying to get away from them. “Christine! Scan me!” He can hear himself screaming for the scanner, and he’s not sure how he can stop it. There are no words to describe how violated, how broken-hearted he feels right now, so he just keeps screaming even when he hears the scanner drop and Christine’s voice commanding the guards to let him go. Without the support, he falls to his knees, the screams continue as his mind blanks.

“Jim,” Christine’s voice is softly by his ear, “I’m going to give you something to counteract the drugs in your blood, okay?”  
“No!” He pushes away from her. “No more hypos, please, I need clothes.”

“But-“ she begins and stops herself. “Okay, okay.” She calls someone to find clothes and drapes a blanket around Jim’s shivering shoulders. He glances over at Bones whose nose stopped bleeding but he’s still curled into himself on the floor. With a soft noise, Jim wipes his face and slowly gets up.

“Can you sedate him please?” He looks at Christine. “If he realizes-“

“Already done, Sir.” She nods. “He’ll be lucky to remember what happened yesterday when he wakes up. And Sir?”

“Don’t apologize.” He looks at her. “That’s an order.”

He assumes she realizes what happened behind that privacy screen based on the nature of his injuries, the fact that his own semen is sticking against the hair on his belly, chest and head. When one of the guards returns with clothes he orders them to help Bones onto a biobed and showers, old-fashioned water, so hot it nearly scalds his skin. He dries himself off and puts on the dark blue scrubs. He doesn’t need his uniform to be the Captain

 

 **Chapter 12**

  
"Scotty, how are my scanners?" Jim meets with Hikaru, Chekov and Nyota in Engineering.

"Captain?" Montgomery gives Jim a look, suspicious, there have been too many encounters with the alternate timeline crew for him to not be suspicious of everyone now.

"It's me and they're themselves, too." He pulls out a scanner that shows exactly that and pulls up the sleeve of his scrubs to reveal a small Starfleet insignia. "The more chroniton activity a body has been exposed to, the more luminous it becomes." He pulls up Chekov's sleeve, the insignia on his forearm glows softly in the low light.

"That's brilliant!" He slaps Chekov on the back. "Hah! Brilliant, lad!"

"It was Pavel, your Pavel, who came up with it." Chekov smiles.

"That's my lad!" Montgomery laughs. "Where's he anyway?"

"He's working from a maintenance junction to give you access to the other Enterprise." Jim puts a bag onto Montgomery's workbench and unpacks phase rifles, phasers, plasma granades, and a collection of knives. He shoulders a rifle and straps a phaser to his hip and to his thigh. Chekov takes all the knives and within minutes none of them are visible to the eye. Nyota takes everything else, including the bag of grenades. "Scan the ship, I want to know if he is still here. My gut tells me he went across but I need to be sure." Sure on where he needs to go to war, because that is what this has become: war.

Montgomery performs the scan, using the device Jim brought with him. Everyone who has performed more than one temporal or transuniversal jump lights up brightly on the screen and when he inputs the DNA parameters into the search, the screen goes blank. He files through the decks but there is no light until he hits the Engineering deck and that light is Jim. He repeats the search, deck by deck for Joanna but nothing.

“That settles it then.” Nyota shoulders the bag. “We’re going over.”

"Pavel," Jim comms on a secure channel. They were well on their way to get their ship back, and this time, Jim wasn't taking prisoners. "Get your ass back to Engineering and show Scotty what you figured out about the photon torpedoes."

"Aye Captain!" Pavel's voice is clear and the accent is there perfect as ever. Jim smiles. After spending a lot of time with Chekov, the lack of accent became concerning.

"We figured out a way to penetrate their subspace bubble or shields or whatever you call it with our torpedoes." Jim smiles. "By 'we' I mean Pavel. He'll explain." He takes the device from the workbench. "Now that you have the configuration, we'll take this with us and find her on site. He probably won't expect us, and if he does, we're ready for him." Setting his jaw, Jim steps onto the transporter pad on the other side of Engineering, Nyota and Chekov follow him.

"What about the other McCoy?"

"Everyone who peacefully surrendered is given amnesty. The rest, we'll take care of when I get back. Send us to their Engineering deck."

The transport is smoother this time. No one throws up and Jim only staggers for a moment. They're right in the middle of Engineering, it's quiet. Nyota fires twice, on stun, to take out two officers with their backs to them. This time, it's not about careful exploration and extraction. This time, it's about finding Joanna... at any cost. Chekov sets up the device and hacks into the system within minutes.

"I'm in the system, we're on an open comm link. I have control over all systems and unless they're specifically searching for me in depth and I will know if they are."

  
"Basically, they won't find you unless you want them to."

"Aye, Sir."

"Good." Jim takes the rifle from his shoulder. "Now find my daughter."  
And Joanna they find, just one deck up in sealed crew quarters. Kirk is on the bridge, no doubt coordinating his next strike. Jim doesn't stop to think, he's out of Engineering and in the Jeffries' Tubes in moments. He knows Hikaru is right behind him and that's all he needs to know. Nyota stays back with Chekov, just in case. He's climbing the ladder faster than he's ever climbed anything before. He can feel his lungs burn, but he has no choice. He needs to keep going, needs to not think about what happened or how they'll ever recover from it.

"Down here," Hikaru points to the left of the corridor and they jog the rest of the way. They shoot first and ask question later. They're sure soon enough someone will notice the trail of shot crew members and Jim almost regrets having set his rifle to stun. And before soon, they jog around the corner knowing the door to the quarters Joanna is in lies right ahead of them. Soon, soon he'll hold her in his arms and everything will be okay, everything will be-

"Apologies gentlemen, but we have somewhere to be." Kirk stand in front of the quarters, Joanna in his arms, tied and gagged in front of his torso like a human shield. He's holding a phaser to her and then, he disappears in a transporter beam.

"Fuck!" Jim punches a wall. He can feel bones shatter but he doesn't care. "Chekov! The fucker transported somewhere. Find him!"

"Aye." And after a few minutes: "I have his coordinates. You won't like what-"

"Just get us there. Now!" Jim is close to losing his temper, to losing the calm drive that's been keeping him whole since Bones… Jim’s thoughts are disrupted by a transporter beam locking on.  
They reappear and for a moment, Jim isn't sure where they are. He looks around to get his bearings, Hikaru is behind him pale. Shuttle bay, they're in the shuttle bay. What usually houses twenty small shuttles is mostly filled with spare parts and tech, more like Jim's grandfather's barn rather than a shuttle hangar. Not too far from them, Kirk is holding Joanna by the shoulder, her hands are still tied and her mouth is covered with tape. Shaggy hair falls in front of her eyes, but Jim can tell by the shaking of her shoulders that she is crying. He gets up to run toward her, but Kirk holds up his hand.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Kirk smiles and nods his head toward the control panel he is standing beside. "One more step and those hangar doors behind us, they open. Now me, he points to an alloy harness and rope around him, I'm tethered nice and well, but our little Jojo here, she's well her hands are tied and she's just a little girl. Not much strength yet, no match for the vacuum of space."

Jim opens his mouth to shout, but Hikaru's hand is on his shoulder and he feels a sudden sense of calm wash over him.

"What do you want?"

"I want them back! My crew, McCoy, Chekov, all of them, unharmed and alive. And Joanna, she comes with us."

"You know I can't do that. She doesn't belong with you."

"That doesn't matter anymore. If we can't have her, you can't have her back. It's that easy. And I have the resources to find myself another one form another timeline."

How Jim manages not to lunge at Kirk, he isn't sure. This man looks just like him, same voice, same demeanour, same everything, but yet here he was, threatening to space a fucking child because he couldn't steal her from her family. Jim is sickened, angry, and determined.

"Look, I get it. Your lives are unfairly hard. We've got it cozy in comparison, but you're me, you know that I won't stop at anything to get her back. If you let her go, I'll give you everything you want, you can even have all your tech back, all your crew, Chekov, McCoy, all of them."

"And me," Hikaru speaks up beside Jim. "I will come with you. You need the best damned pilot to find yourself another Joanna. If you let her go, you can take me instead."  
"You would let him go, Jim?"

"For Joanna, and if it's his wish, yeah." Jim nods. "I would."

Kirk is silent for a while. Jim knows he's considering the offer. Hikaru would be an excellent asset to any crew, but to this one, it would be nearly priceless but he wouldn't just go for it, not without reassurances.

"Chekov," Jim comms, "beam over all the tech they beamed to us and beam McCoy into the hangar."

"Sir?"

"Do it!"

McCoy appears moments later, disoriented and confused together with some tech.

"Check your inventory, everything should be back."

Kirk does, glancing between them. "It's all here." He sounds surprised.

"I'm a Kirk. We are men of our word."

"Okay," Kirk looks at McCoy and then at Jim. "Okay, but he comes here first." He waves at Hikaru and Hikaru obliges. First he puts his weapons down, and then he walks across the hangar. He kneels beside Joanna and unties her hands and gently pulls the tape from her mouth.

"I need you to be very brave right now and walk over to Uncle Jim, okay?" She hesitates for a moment and he embraces her tightly for a moment before letting her go. "I'll always think of you baby girl, okay? I love you."

"You're my dad, too." She whispers close to him and Hikaru has to bite his cheek to prevent tears from coming.

"Always, baby girl, always."

She sobs but she walks away from him in small, unsteady steps until Jim scoops her up to hug her tightly.

"Chekov, beam over the crew on my signal."

"It's done, Sir."  
"Thank you, now beam Joanna and me back to the Enterprise."

"Belay that order Lieutenant Chekov." Kirk unstraps himself from the harness and Jim puts Joanna down and stands in front of her.

"Oh I was really hoping you's do that." He fires without hesitation and Joanna shrieks and cowers behind his legs when Kirk returns fire. "Beam her over Chekov! Use my comm badge! Run Jo!" She does gripping the comm badge and disappears into thin air.

Kirk reaches for Hikaru but Hikaru elegantly steps out of his reach and returns with a swift kick to Kirk's knee. Jim's across the hangar in as second and wrestles Kirk to the ground, straddles him and lays down a few punches before he feels Hikaru's arm on him.

"He's not worth it." Hikaru looks at Kirk who is curling up on his side. "Let's go home."

"You're right," Jim spits and gets up. "You've got what you wanted, now make the best of your second chance."

They turn and walk toward the exit, coordinating Nyota's return first and then theirs. They don't hear Kirk's quiet struggle, nor do they see him stumble up and run for the weapons Hikaru laid down. As Kirk aims, McCoy sees him from the corner of his vision and suddenly the world seems to condense down into slow motion. Jim hears McCoy's shout and when he turns he's hit by McCoy's flying body, protecting him from the phaser fire coming from Kirk's weapon. All Jim can smell is burning flesh, the phaser was set to kill. He can feel Hikaru grab the rifle from his shoulder, feels his shoulder dislodge from its socket as Hikaru only fires once, on kill. Kirk goes down immediately, a round burn mark where his left eye used to be.

"Chekov," Hikaru's voice is so calm as he puts the rifle down and pulls his shirt over his head and places it on the wound Jim hadn't realized he had on his thigh. "Beam us back."

The world goes tingly for a moment and then Sickbay appears. There's a lot more blood now, but if Hikaru's calm, Jim is sure it can't be that bad.

"Scotty," Jim coughs as Christine tends to his wounds, "What's the status on my torpedoes?"

"They're as ready as they're ever going to be, Captain."

"Fire. Fire them all."

He can feel the ship vibrate for a moment when Montgomery fires a whole volley of torpedoes. There is a rumbling in the distance like thunder and then suddenly everything goes white.

  
***

  
“Scotty, how are those scanners coming along?” Jim taps his fingers. It’s not that he is annoyed but he would rather be having Mama McCoy’s famous breakfast instead of hurling through space toward a dubious distress signal. It’s a selfish thing to think about when there was a potential for casualties, but shore leave lasted a whole of three days and he hasn’t had coffee yet. Montgomery assures him that scanners will be fully operational within the hour. Janice drops off the roster with a tired smile and a cup of coffee. Jim smiles, they would just have to get this over with.

In Sickbay, Leonard goes over emergency procedures with his staff, gripping his coffee cup rather tightly. He’s tired. They haven’t had a chance to sleep yet, none of them. Everyone is clinging to their cups tighter today, but they are ready for whatever may come.

Hikaru Sulu is glad he is not on Alpha shift today. He feels for Jim and Leonard, but the five-hour nap he just took in his quarters really made him feel more human. He scratches his belly as he slips into the bathroom for a quick shower and a leisurely morning wank. He wraps a towel around his waist and shuffles over to the food dispenser with a yawn.  
“Oolong. Black.” He watches the cup appear slowly when he feels an odd sensation in the back of his head and is his gut.

                                        

   fin.

 

 

 


End file.
